Finding Their Way
by EmeraldGreenMind
Summary: Max and her flock start off tring to find Angel while Fang and his gang are off on their own mission. They join forces to see if they can help eachother and Max ends up pregnant, but who's the father? This story is pretty much about everyone pairing off and then having to defeat Itex.
1. This Is The Last Time!

**A.N- This is so people know what I'll be doing: the story will all be in Max's point of view unless I say otherwise. This is just a story that I thought of which takes place after **_Angel_**. So anyways- I don't own** _Maximum Ride _**that is all James Patterson's and I'm a Mylan person cause Dylan is just so cute/nice, and all. BUUUT I also like Fax. I love them since they have so much history and they're so in love and don't want to admit it. The first part of this story will be about everyone pairing off, and then it'll turn into how they defeat Itex, the Doomsday Group, and also Hans.**

* * *

><p><strong>This Is The Last Time!<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>December 11<strong>**th**

Since your reading this, I bet you want to know what I'm doing right now, right? Well at this very moment Gazzy, Nudge, Iggy, Dylan, and I are flying over… um… somewhere around Gunnison, Colorado now, I think. There are a lot of mountains, lakes and parks here. I love it! We're coming from Phoenix, Arizona where we had just left my mother and sister after staying with them for a few months.

We are in a V form like always, Dylan taking F-Fangs old spot, and since we only have five members now *sniff* we make a perfect 'V' formation. We should be in Denver in maybe half an hour, forty minutes tops. If you're asking 'why Denver?' well I'll tell you why; we think one of the main branches of the Doomsday Group is around here.

So the flock is still broken, Fa-Fang is still… gone (I don't want to think about that too much since it still makes me want to cry). Angel is also ga-a- (Now I actually do cry).

"Max…" I hear Dylan whisper sadly, to my right. Everyone's already used to my sometimes letting a few tears come out from thinking of Angel, and they never say anything anymore. No comforting words unless I really start bawling. They know it won't help. Of course they're sad too, but she was my baby, and I already lost her once. I have a bad feeling we're not getting her back this time *tear*. We don't even know if she's still alive… All the Flock put on brave faces and usually pretend they don't see, for my sake. But they shouldn't have to do that! I'm the leader; I'm the one who should comfort them when they're hurting! *A few more tears escape and I started sobbing.

"Max it's ok, please don't cry. I know we'll find her. I just know it Max!" Nudge said trying to comfort me, but it sounded like it was more for her than for me at the end. I started to sob louder because they were seeing me like this... again.

Now Iggy spoke up "Nudge is right Max. You know Angel is super smart, and she'd never let it end it like that." I start to sob violently now after the mentioning of her name. "She loves you just as much as you do, if not more, and it's only a matter of time till she finds us!" He said with feeling, and sounding like he was on the verge of crying himself.

Then Dylan sped up, got in front of me, and led us down to the ground. We landed on a stiff patch of yellow grass on a flat part of a mountain and I fell to the ground still sobbing violently. I felt someone come down with me and felt big warm arms go around me. Dylan. I felt all my muscles relax and the pain in my chest stopped. Why does he always make me feel better?

My crying slowed and it became less painful to breath, I was still taking in quick shallow breaths but tears stopped falling. About three minutes later I was done crying, but my throat was dry and hurt like hell. After all, it _is_ December and we _are_ on top of a mountain, so it's not a good idea to violently take in the cold air non-stop for even a few minutes. Dylan-putting a hand under my chin- gently turns my head to face him. "Are you ok now?" he asked lightly. I nodded slowly and got up.

I looked around at everyone and saw that Nudge and Gazzy's eyes were a little red (probably how mine are) and guessed they'd been crying too. Iggy was just standing by them looking a little awkward and not knowing what to do. Iggy and Dylan had a little more control than Nudge, Gazzy, and me over this.

Gazzy put on a brave front, but you can't forget, the kid's still only nine. Once someone snaps, he can't help but break as well. Iggy's eyes showed his pain. He didn't let tears escape, but there was sadness in his foggy, ice-blue eyes. I looked at Dylan who was still on the ground and his turquoise eyes looked up at me sadly.

"I'm sorry you guys" I say looking at them all, and before anyone could say anything I added- "I'm sorry I've been doing this to you all so much lately, I'm supposed to lead you, and I'm not sure how I can if I keep breaking down like this." I say and then drop my face into my palms for a moment, to hide it from them so I don't start to cry like a baby again.

Nudge spoke up first "It's not your fault Max. We're all hurting" I lift my head up and drop my hands to my sides. She made me feel a little less guilt, but I still shouldn't do this to them.

"No, it is my fault; I can't be doing this all the time! I've been dragging us down!" I realized I was yelling so I stared speaking softer. "If we want to even have a chance at finding her, I can't keep stopping us. I promise this is the last time I slow us down you guys". Gazzy quickly comes to me and hugs me, Nudge following him shortly. I hug them both tightly to me not wanting to ever let go in case they were ever taken from me. I looked up at Iggy and Dylan, smiling. They made their way over and joined this rare group hug too. "_I love you all, please don't leave me_" I said as softly as I could manage, but since we're all so close and we all have super hearing I bet everyone heard. They all hugged tighter.

I had to break the hug eventually and smiling at everyone. I unfurled my light brown-spotted white wings and said that we should get going. Everyone nodded and did the same, taking their wings out. Iggy accidently whacking Nudge on the head not noticing she was that close. "omigod Iggy!" She squealed rubbing her head, then patting her messy hair back down. We all laughed.

"Sorry" Iggy said blushing slightly. He was normally more observant than that, so I was going to keep an eye on him. We all took off. I checked our direction a minute later and changed our course by a few degrees south, angling the tips of my wings slightly. Everyone copied me a few seconds later.

**Time-lapse:) [While they're flying there I'll tell you what's happened in the past few months]**

_Ok so after the flock said bye to Fang's gang, Max decided to go look for her mom and Ella before anything having to do with the Doomsday group. They thought that Angel had died so they didn't really talk about it (but Max never stopped hoping). They eventually found Dr. Martinez and Ella and they had both been brainwashed. They soon un-brainwashed them and filled them in on what had happened. It was harder to un-brainwash them without Angel, but they managed. They also found Jeb (brainwashed too). He still doesn't have their full trust and they're always on guard around him, but everyone started trusting him more as time went on. Then the voice started talking to Max again (it wasn't Jeb); saying that they should look for Angel and that the DG had her. It didn't, however, specify whether she was alive or not and didn't say anything else after that. They stayed with Max's mom for quite a while, while all of them tried to learn all of the DG branches and locations. Max had started being mean to Dylan again after the Angel incident, and after a while she just ignored him. Now in the past few weeks, they've been growing closer and Max has been getting more comfortable around him. Oh and they found Dr. Gunther-Hagen too, but since neither Max nor her mom wanted another 'Max needs to produce heirs' talk, they kicked him out the loop. Kind of like Jeb, but Jeb was still allowed to visit and conference with them. Oh and Iggy can pretty much see now. He can't see detail, but he can tell what things are and sometimes who people are._

**Now back to the flock who are now at their destination (night time now)-**

I was sitting on my bed with one leg folded \upright, my chin resting on my knee, and my wings coming out a bit. I know that sounds weird and is probably bad for my back but why would I give a fuck? It was comfortable! I was about to click on the 26th link I'd found when I saw a figure crawling on the floor reaching for something on top of my night stand "GASMAN, PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW!" I yell at the top of my lungs. He and Iggy had made two bombs earlier and I had confiscated the second as a punishment for lighting the first in the living room. My god, when will they learn that curtains are very flammable?

"But Max, we'll be carefu-" He started, but I cut him off.

"I said no; you're not getting it back, and that's final!" He looked like he was about to say something but I gave him a death glare and he thought better of it.

He stalked out of my room and I notice someone else at my door. "Hey, can I come in?" Dylan asks.

"Yeah, sure" I say changing my death glare aimed at Gazzy, to a smile. He comes up to me and sits on me bed, beside me. His legs are out in front of him and his feet fall off the end of my bed some.

My mom and Jeb are pretty tight with a lot of important people so they always manage to get us places to stay wherever we go. We were in a house they had gotten for us that wasn't too big, but it had a room for each of us, a kitchen, living room, and two bathrooms. It was a two story and Dylan and I had the two bedrooms down stairs. I thought it'd be safer- if anyone tried to come in through the front door (if anyone was _stupid _enough to, anyway) then me or Dylan would hear them and beat their sorry ass before they had the chance to get to the others. The only bad thing is that the heat was broken and it's December, so do the math…

So yeah, Dylan sits on my bed (a tiny twin bed I might add) and I was pretty surprised we fit. "Did you find anything?" He asks after situating himself up against me. A month ago I swear I would have tried to at least bite him or something for being so close, but right now I don't mind. I felt strangely happy when he was against me, plus he was pretty warm too so that was welcomed.

"Well, I don't know yet" I say, as I finally clicking on the blue link. It led to a log on screen for some site called _Saving the World_. I thought it was a dead end like the others but I figured I might as well try it anyway. "Nudge, can you come here for a sec?" I ask. I didn't have to yell since my door was open and I knew she could hear from the living room.

She scurried into my room a few seconds later. "Yeah?" She smiled, and raised her eyebrow; noticing Dylan and I so close.

I decided to ignore it, "Can you hack into this?" I asked turning the laptop over to her. She sat in front of my curled up form and took the laptop. Several mouse, and keyboard clicks later she changed the determined look she had gotten to one of triumph. "Thanks a bunc… What's wrong?" Her look had changed into something like shock.

"Look at this" She said turning the laptop so that Dylan and I could see. Now I saw why she made that face. The website that once said _Saving the World_ now had completely changed its set up and now said _One Light Organization._ Well it's a good thing I didn't leave the site…

"Wow. Ok well I'll check it out and I'll tell you all if I find anything" After I said this she slowly made her way to my door. When she was almost out she looked back at us and gave me a 'look' and then closed my door. God sometimes she reminds me so much of Angle, how she tried to get me to be with Dylan.

Then realizing what I just thought and felt my heart squeeze painfully. I got that awful feeling in my stomach I always get when I'm sad, and that chocking feeling in the back of my throat you get when you know you're about to cry. "It hurts me when you're sad" I hear Dylan whisper behind me. I looked up at him as my eyes start to grow wet. But I wasn't feeling sad anymore; I was confused, and kind of scared. "What's wrong Max?" Dylan asked confused.

"How'd you know I was sad?" I asked cautiously. He was right of course, but the thing is I wasn't looking at him. How did he sense my sadness before I shed a tear; before I even flinched?

"What do you mean?" He asked surprised

"Well I was staring at the laptop screen, away from you. You didn't see my face and I didn't even stiffen." I wondered what they meant about Dylan and I being each other's perfect other half now. Had they taken some of me and like put it in him or something? Had they made him be able to read my thoughts, or given him a Voice, like mine?

"I don't know" He said, a little confused himself. "I've been able to know how you feel for a while now, and a while ago I started to actually _feel_ what you felt. It's the same with the others too." He was looking into my eyes now and I felt my sadness go away. I felt happy and kind of hot…

"Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed, "I think you have a new power". I said realizing it myself. Then I got a little worried he might be able to control them too, but then it just melted away. I just couldn't get Angle out of my head today could I? Because then I realized that it wasn't very far off from Angle's mind reading/controlling powers. Then I felt that pang of loss again-

"Max I think you're right about my powers, but could you please stop being like a roller coaster?" I looked at him confused. "I can feel all the emotions you're getting and I'm trying to help you by taking them out of you and into me, but I feel like I'm about to explode" He explained.

"Sor- wait! _You're_ taking them out? Is that why I keep feeling happy? Can you control how I feel? Did you make me feel better earlier today too?" I asked all at once and wasn't really expecting him to answer them all because I wouldn't have been able to keep up with myself either. So he really surprised me when he said-

"Yea I _think_ I'm taking them out. I hope that's why you feel happy, since I've been trying to make you feel better. I think I might be able to control how you feel, but I don't want to do that to you. And yes, I'm pretty sure I made you feel better earlier." Wow that was a mouthful. "I _had_ thought of the possibility of it being a new power, so I was trying to experiment some, but I never got the chance to tell you. I think I already figured out what I _can _do, but I'm not sure _how_ I do it. It just kind of happens."

"What's all you can do?" I ask him, now sitting cross-legged and facing him.

"So far I think I can read emotions. I can change them, but I have to make them go into me, I can't just make them go away. Also, I think I can let other people know what I'm feeling, but that one is kind of weird, and I do it by accident." That might explain why I always feel happy when he's close.

"Well that's really cool we should tell the others later. Right now we should check this out though." I said turning my attention back to the laptop. I then sat up more like Dylan was, so we could both look at the screen.

After a while we decided that there wasn't much to learn from this site. Just some meeting times and things we'd already learned back at my mom's house when we were researching.

Nudge then comes in and tells us that she's going to bed. "You are?" I ask. What time was it? I look at the clock on the laptop screen, 12 already? "Oh yeah, I guess we should all get some sleep before we go to the DG place."

"Gazzy actually already crashed on the couch. Iggy's carrying him to his room and then going to bed himself." Nudge informed me.

"Okay, hang on, I'll go with you" I say, shutting the laptop down.

When we get to her room she starts to change to her pjs. Yes we actually wear those now. Being at my mom's for so long and not on the run kind of made us be more relaxed. "So were you able to get anything?" She asks, referring to the website from earlier.

"Not really, we knew most of the things it had and the other things weren't really important" I say, sitting down on her bed. Then I suddenly remembered "Oh and hey, guess what!"

"Huh?" she asked me turning, from getting her pajama shirt from her backpack.

"Dylan got a new power." I told her, and for a while we talked about it. We wondered if we were going to get any other powers and pretty soon I started feeling tired. "Well…" I said yawning, "I'll let you get some sleep now."

I tucked her in like I always do, in my mind she will never be too old for this, and tell her good night. She murmurs "night" as I close her door. Now off to Gazzy's room. His room is right next to Nudge's so I only had to walk a few steps.

I look in and see he's sound asleep. I go in anyways and tuck him in a little since Iggy already put the covers over him. He looks younger when he's sleeping. We all look older than we really are because we develop faster than regular humans, so I like to see the flock asleep. They look younger, more relaxed, more like we used to when we lived with Jeb after our first small taste of freedom.

I slowly close his door so as not to wake him, and head to Iggy's room. His door is wide open and when I get to it, he immediately looks at me. I can tell he wants to talk to me so I go in and sit by him on his bed.

"Something wrong?" I ask.

"I don't know." He says, staring blankly at the door. "Since my sight got better, my other senses got less sensitive." He tells me a little worriedly.

"I'm sorry Igg. Your other senses were probably heightened _because_ of your blindness, so that might be why they're getting normal now. But maybe they'll stay, you never know." I say trying to cheer him up a bit.

"I guess you're right. Maybe I'm just over reacting, and since my sight's back, just ignoring my other senses a little."

"Yeah, exactly. Don't worry too much about it. Well, I'm going to sleep now Iggs. You should too; we're still getting up early tomorrow." He nodded and I told him good night. He told me good night back as I left.

When I got to my room I checked my watch which said 12:30. Why do I even have a watch? Oh yeah- Jeb gave it to me and I took it to not be rude… for my mom. I walk to the tiny dresser in my tiny room and open my backpack that was on top of it. I take the watch off and slip it in the pack, then take my pjs out, in exchange. I start to take my shirt off, while turning to my bed- "Oh my god Dylan, what are you doing? Were you planning on saying anything before I completely striped in front of you!" I say in a loud whisper, and put the shirt that was around my neck back on.

Dylan just chuckles. "Sorry" he says, not really sounding it in the slightest. "I guess I'll go now." He said after a while, noticing I was feeling kind of awkward.

He was almost out the door when he stopped, walked back over to me, kissed my cheek and told me good night faster than I could react. He walked out the door and closed it lightly. I was a little shocked and confused. He hadn't done something like that in a long time, so why now?

I finally got changed and crawled into bed, quickly falling asleep thinking of Dylan.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- If anyone actually read this, thank you. Please tell me what you think.<strong>

**Love you all even though I don't know you!**

**~L**


	2. Getting There

**A.N: Thank you MandiiDD and InvaderVyn for actually reading this.**

** MandiiDD: thank you so much and I will:). **

**InvaderVyn: thank you for the constructive criticism I actually do appreciate that you took time to do it, I don't think I'll get a beta though (I don't know who to get) and you should tell me what grammar mistakes because if it's the "gonna" and stuff like that; well then that's kind of how they talk. Oh and I don't want to spoil anything but there IS a reason why Max is being like that. Part of it is because she annoys me sometimes and I want to change her characters a little and then the other part is… well you'll find out. I'll try to live up to that potential:)**

* * *

><p><strong><span>Getting there<span>**

I wake up to the sun being a bitch and deciding I should wake up two hours before my alarm went off. Ugh… Well I might as well get up now since I'm already awake.

I walk into our little kitchen and open the fridge. It's already stocked well so we'll have enough food for the short time we spend here. I don't want to wake the others yet since it's still pretty early so I take the milk out, and make cereal just for myself. Not like they'd even want to eat something I made (even cereal). Oh, what would we do without Iggy…

After I make my cereal I go in the living room and plop myself down on the couch. I turn on the TV and turn the volume as low as it can go, so I could still hear but the others wouldn't be disturbed. Pretty soon I was done with the cereal and just watched the news.

Then I sprinted to the bathroom, and puked my guts out. Well there goes my breakfast. No wonder why the others never want to eat anything I make. *Sigh…

I go to the kitchen and look at the milk. The expiration date says it expires today. I probably should have checked that. So I throw it out and look for some other little thing to eat.

About two hours later I decide it's time to wake the others so I go to Dylan's room. Knocking on the door I scream "GET UP!"

I hear an "ugh!" from his room and him flipping over, so I feel accomplished and go upstairs to get the others up.

Once everyone's up and crowded around the TV while Iggy makes breakfast I tell them all again what we'll be doing today (I know Iggy can hear from the kitchen so I won't have to repeat it again).

"Who threw away the milk?" Iggy asks confused from the kitchen.

I go to the kitchen and say "I did, it says it expires today".

"Max, milk is good for a while after it says it expires" he says matter-of-factly and making me feel stupid.

While he got the milk out the trash and uncapped it I say "well I had some earlier and it made me sick" trying to defend my actions. So then he sniffs the liquid in question.

"I think it's fine, maybe it was something else you had that made you sick. Oh and Max when they throw milk away, people usually dump it down the sink."

"No, it was the milk Iggy. It was the only thing I had; and I knew that!" I say a little aggressively.

"Ok chill Max. We still need some milk for the pancakes though" I give him a dirty look. "But I guess I can improvise…" he says surrendering the subject. That's what I thought.

"And pick that up" I say pointing to the pancake box he dropped on the floor.

"Max, you dropped that" he said getting annoyed.

"No I didn't. Just pick it up" I say turning to leave for the living room.

As I walk out of the kitchen I hear him mumble "god, next thing you know she'll be shaving one of my eyebrows in my sleep if Gazzy leaves the toilet seat up…" I decided to ignore it this time thinking of how stupid he just sounded.

A while later, breakfast was ready and we all dug in. Everyone was done after about five of Iggy's giant pancakes but I ate two more. "Hey Max?" Gazzy said sweetly.

"Yea?" I asked cautiously while chewing the last of my pancake. Nudge made an 'ew' expression when I accidently spit some of it out while talking.

"Can we have our bomb back?" I should have guessed…

"I'll give it to you before we leave Gazzy, is that ok?"

"Yea, ok" he says disappointed.

"Ok guys, everyone start getting ready. We're leaving in about half an hour people!" I said as we all took the plates and things to the kitchen.

About fifteen minutes later I was I my room getting dressed for this mission when there was a knock on my door.

"Come in" I say pulling my shirt down.

Dylan comes in (shocker) and just sits down on my bed.

I turn to him expectantly "can I help you with something?"

He slowly looks up at me and looks in my eyes for a minute. I guess he didn't find whatever he was looking for because after a while he just looked back down at the carpet and shook his head.

"Well ok?" I say confused "Are you ready?"

"Yea. I think all the others are too… Except for Nudge" He still didn't look up, he just talked to the carpet.

I go stand by my bed for a moment then sit next to him. "Dylan are you ok, is something wrong?" I ask a little worried. He's usually happy and outgoing; right now he's… not himself.

Now he looks at me a little angry "No Max, a better question is are you ok?" I look at him shocked "Don't you trust me?" Now I'm really confused. "I could help you Max" then he whispers "Why him? Why not me?"

I still had no idea what he was talking about so I just tried to end the subject "Um, I'm going to go… help Nudge" I say getting up and leaving the room.

I go up the stairs and pass Iggy and Gazzy talking in the hallway. They stop when the see me, and Iggy asks "can we have it now?"

"Yea, fine. Go get it, it's on my nightstand." Then I look at Gazzy "Gazzy knows where" I say, and then walk past them to Nudge's room.

"Hey Max! Ok I'm almost ready I just need a hair-"she said looking around her floor. "Found it!" she exclaimed while bending down to get a pony tail holder from under her bed. She got back up smiling and asked "so is everyone ready?" while putting her hair up.

* * *

><p><strong>(<strong>SECRET BRANCH OF ITEX<strong>)**

"Are you sure he knows?" the director- Silvia- asked referring back to experiment AH-G2-3.

"We can't be one hundred percent positive since we don't have contact with his thoughts like we do experiment AH-G1-1. But referring back his earlier actions and his programing mam… well he should have been able to sense it" The man in charge of surveillance and information gathering- Jake- says while typing some commands into a high tech computer. Then he turned back to the director, more seriously "our only concern now mam, is that AH-G1-1 doesn't know herself… Which could be potentially harmful for-"

Silvia cut him off before he could finish and says "that's fine for right now, she should soon though. If she doesn't by our next meeting, we might have to communicate with her."

* * *

><p><strong>(MAX)<strong>

We just landed in the woodsy area around the Denver DG headquarters and now Dylan was making sure that the coast was clear for us to go. Iggy and Gazzy were going to separate from Dylan, Nudge and I so they could set their bombs.

"All clear guys" Dylan whispers turning back to us. "There are three guards over on the east entrance but that should be fine right?"

"Yea" I whisper back "We're going in through a vent by the west entrance, so we should be fine." I made sure everyone was ready and then gave them the signal to follow me... and then it happened again.

After I was done puking behind some poor bush I looked back at my flock. Nudge was the first to speak, like usual "Max, are you ok? That's the second time today. I think you're sick, are you sure you want to go through with the mission right now. I mean if you're not feeling well we can just do this some other time" she said with concern obvious on her face.

"No, I'm fine it's probably just that stupid milk from this morning. Apparently I didn't get it all out of me earlier" I say aggravated.

Iggy then clears his throat and we all look at him "Um, I know you'll probably hate me for this but I kinda added the milk to the pancakes" I started to get mad but the he said "but before you kill me or whatever, think about it. We ALL had those pancakes, but you're the only one that got sick. So I don't think it was the milk."

He had a point, but I was still mad he disobeyed me. I opened my mouth in preparation to discipline Iggy but Nudge cut me off "Max we never get sick! What if this is really serious, what would happen if-" I put my hand over her mouth because she had gotten loud and the guards might hear us.

I look to were the guards were and they're not there anymore. "Guys. We're out of here. Now" I say sternly and get my wings out right as the bullets start flying. One hits my right wing and goes right through with some of my feathers. That got me mad so I say "never mind, guys we're staying and fighting!"

_'Ma-ak-s-' _I heard in the back of my head, it sounded like a static walkie talkie '_Voice is that you?'_ I asked quickly but got no reply.

At first it doesn't hurt and as everyone started to fly in the trees, I try to do the same but right as I'm about to go behind them the pain registers and it didn't really feel too nice. I wince but keep going. I was about to reach them when I got shot again, this time on my leg. That one actually hurt a lot and now I had pretty much lost the flock, except for Dylan.

He stayed back on the ground and was running to me, but then he got shot in the arm. The bullet didn't go in his arm, but it scraped its way by. Dylan didn't even wince he just licked his hand and put it to his upper arm, where the bullet had hit. When he took his hand away I could see the wound was almost healed. This all happened in a few seconds and he was still coming to me. Then a huge guard came out of nowhere and started hand-to-hand combat with Dylan. I'm pretty sure it was part of yet another M-Geek batch. I saw them both fight -pretty evenly matched- further in the woods and out of my sight.

"Dylan!" I cried out. I was limping now and as a last ditch effort I tried flying again. The guards were getting closer now but I had the woods to my favor, they gave me a little longer before the guards would be able to actually aim right at me. I felt a warm liquid falling from my wing and then noticed the blood. I thought I'd still be able to fly so I tried anyway.

The guards were in sight now and the rest of the flock dive bombed at them from the trees they were hiding in and tried taking all of their guns but missed one.

I got maybe fifteen feet in the air until I was shot at again this time in the torso. I grabbed my side and started to fall.

"Max!" Nudge cried. She was fighting one of the M-Geeks, hitting all the weak spots we knew of, but apparently all those had been fixed. Nudge however, being smart as she is, hit some other spot at the back of its neck and the thing just crumbled down.

At the last second I made my wings go out, to slow the last few seconds of my fall. It still hurt a lot though. God why did this happen! This never happens to us, and this time we had this planned out so well too! I can't believe this! It can't end like this, I can't die like waterfowl! And I sure as hell can't let them get my flock!

That's when Dylan flew in again, this time with Iggy and dropped down some bombs by the guards/ M-Geeks, or whatever they are. Dylan flew towards me and without landing- just running a foot or two- grabbed me and flew back up, out where he'd come from with Iggy.

"Nudge! Gazzy! Let's go!" Iggy yelled back. They finishing the last M-Geek together and then flew to us.

When we got some distance from there we landed and Dylan sat me down on the grass and I noticed that his arms were full of blood- my blood. "S-sorry Dylan" I say feeling a little faint.

"Shh Max, it doesn't matter. Iggy we need help right? You can't fix it?" Dylan said quickly.

Iggy was a little speechless, finally seeing my injuries, but he snapped out of it quick "no we have to go to a hospital now, she's already lost a lot of blood. Hurry!"

We still didn't really want to be found or have to ask anyone for help especially when it involves hospitals and doctors. But apparently my injuries were bad enough to risk the flock getting found out. So we get to the hospital and Dylan barges right in by almost breaking the door down in the process, and rushes straight to the front desk ladies. He bumped into a few people who had been in line but once they saw me they made way for us looking scared. After that all I remember is Dylan yelling something at the front desk ladies. My stomach started hurting really really bad and then everything went dark.

…

I woke up sometime the next morning, I think. Soft light was coming in from the semi-opened window to the right of my bed in this white room I was apparently in. I noticed some faint pain in my side and remembered everything from the day before; Getting found and shot, then passing out in the hospital. I tried sitting up and to clutch my side but when I moved my leg started to hurt too. So I just gave up and lay back down while wincing. Then I noticed an IV on my wrist, and a few other things I didn't know on me as well.

"The nurse said not to move too much" I heard someone say from my left. I turned my head on the pillow to see Dylan looking at me. His eyes had slight bags under them and he looked and sounded extremely tired.

I looked at him for a moment the asked "what happened?"

"Well you lost a lot of blood from the three shots you got. The whole flock gave you some of their blood, the doctors know about us now but I called Jeb and he took care of it" I made a face at Jeb's name but didn't interrupt. "This room wasn't really big enough and they said no one should even be in here until you were more stable, so they gave us another room to sleep in. You became stable at around two or three so I came in then" he summarized.

"What time is it now?" I asked glancing at the window again.

"Um" he takes out his cell phone to check the time "its nine twenty three" he says sliding the phone back in his jean pocket to look at me again. "Well before the doctor comes I should tell you he said he wanted to wait to tell us something for when you woke up" as he said that an expression crossed his face that I couldn't quite place.

Then a nurse walks in "oh I didn't think you would be awake yet sweetie" she exclaimed looking at me then looking down at the clipboard she was holding "ok, well I'm just going to be checking on some things right now, and I bet you're starving right now huh? I can send someone in here after me to get you both something to eat if you'd like" she said as she walked around my bed and looked at some machines hooked to me.

"That would be very nice of you" Dylan says while she was scribbling something on her clipboard. She looked up and smiled, nodded once and after a few more scribbles made her way to the door. She stopped and looked at her clipboard one more time then back at me "the doctor should be here soon to talk to you" she said a little more impassive than when she'd talked to us before. Then she left.

After we ate a doctor who couldn't be more than thirty came in "Ms. Ride I didn't expect you to already be awake, are you comfortable?" He asked nicely.

"Yea, I'm good" I say hesitantly.

"Good, good. No stomach pain?" I shook my head and he went on "Ms. Ride, I'm really sorry. We really did everything we could, but the wound was too close and you had lost so much blood… your lucky to be alive."

He paused and I looked at him confused and suddenly felt fear race through me. Had I somehow lost my wing or something?

Then he shocked me by saying with a very apologetic face: "I'm so sorry mam, but we lost the baby."

Whaaaa? "th-the what?" I asked dumbfounded.

* * *

><p><strong><span>A.N<span>: Sorry this took so long to post but I have school and I was busy so yea… But if anyone is willing to help me, private message me. I want to have someone I can email who can help me and just check over my work, since sometimes what I write sounds good in my head but awkward in my writing. Also sorry for the cliff hanger but I couldn't help myself so please comment so I know you're still interested and I'll write more.**

**Thank you! LOVE YOU ALL:)**

**-L**


	3. Where'd It Come From?

**A.N**** I feel so happy:) I just found out I can see how many people read my Story. It's 69 (oh gosh why that number), and I know it's not a huge number but I love each and every one of you. I know I shouldn't pick favorites but I love the three of you who commented, just a little bit more;) **

**RandomReader15: Hahah just so you know, this update is just for you. Thank you so much for that, it made me feel good about myself and this story and want to keep writing it, and your 'fnicking' awesome too!**

* * *

><p><strong>Where'd it come from?<strong>

**(SECRET BRANCH OF ITEX)**

**While the flock was getting discovered and fought**

"Oh no! No no no no!" Jake started to scream. Everyone looked at him as he got to the phone and dialed Silvia's number. "Mam we need you here now! We don't know what to do, the communicator's broken and we can't talk to-" he paused listening to the phone and nodding his head quickly "Yes her, she went ahead and fought!" Jake screamed. The others could hear the director scream something and then the phone went silent.

"Does anyone have any new information?" Jake screamed at his coworkers. Everyone shook their heads. Some were trying to fix the communicator, others trying to contact Chris (the technician),still others were either looking at surveillance footage (for Chris) or monitoring the flock.

"Jake, she just got shot in the stomach!" Livy screamed very upset from the computer she was at.

"Shit!" Jake screamed running to one of the communicator computers. He moved the person on it away the least violent way he could, with the little time he knew he had.

He was typing aggressively all of the override passwords he knew when Silvia came in "how is she!" she screamed.

"They're on their way to a hospital!" a guy (Gavin) on one computer said.

"She's lost too much blood already… I don't think the baby will make it…" Livy said from another computer. She was crying softly now. They weren't supposed to get attached to experiments, but everyone had somewhat of a tie to them. This group especially.

"It's ok! There might still be a chance!" Silvia screamed running a communicator computer. She was trained very well and could do just about everyone's jobs. She typed in a few commands and opened up a special command box. She then typed in several lines of what looked like random letters and numbers; but what was actually a crucial line of commands. If she got even a single character wrong it wouldn't work.

"I think it's too late mam" Livy says quietly coming up behind the director. "Experiment AH-G1-1 has lost consciousness. Even if we could tell her, she wouldn't hear. I'm sorry."

Jake went over to where they were after his attempts at fixing things failing. "No we can still wake her up so she can tell them what to do!" he says, now going to Livy's computer to check on experiment AH-G1-1's vitals. He frowns and sighs loudly after a moment. Rubbing his forehead where a headache was staring to form, he walks over to Silvia and Livy. Shaking his head now, he says "Livy was right: it's too late. She's in a deep sleep, almost like a coma. She'll be alright but the baby should already be dead."

Silvia doesn't show any signs of acknowledgement and types a few more things. After pressing enter, another boxe pops up showing that everything she had typed was flawless. The new box looked like it measured vocals, like voice recording software. She scooted the small mic closer and started screaming into it "Max! Wake up!" (Silence in the computer and all around the room) "Max please! Can you hear me?" Silvia still didn't want to give up but Jake put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. Silvia looked back at him and couldn't believe it. Should she have been here only a few minutes before, she could have saved it. She looks to the computer again, "Max…?" she asked sadly.

* * *

><p><strong>(Iggy- <strong>_yey Iggy_**)**

'Wow did Dylan really think that we hadn't heard him leave?' Iggy thought. The only reason he'd made the rest of the flock stay here was because he knew the room was too small and Max would want to be somewhat alone when the doctor told her. He still couldn't believe she hadn't realized it sooner. What with all those mood swings, she'd been driving him mad, and he knew sooner or later he would want to slap her. Of course that would only make Dylan want to rip his head off, but he thought it would've been worth it.

As Iggy was smiling at the thought, Nudge interrupted by saying "Iggy why are you smiling? Don't you get that this is a serious situation? Max could be seriously hurt and in pain right now!"

"Na, she'll be fine, I know where it hit" then he frowned just now thinking of something. "What I'm worried about though is if she was really pregnant the baby could've been hurt."

"What?" Nudge asked confused and somewhat shocked as thinking of what Max would have had to do to _get_ pregnant.

That's when Gazzy sat up from his bed "what?" They forgot he was there but weren't surprised he was eavesdropping.

"Yea. Come on people" Iggy said raising his hands dramatically. "Haven't you noticed her annoying mood swings, how she's been eating more than usual, and today she's been throwing up a lot too."

Nudge nodded, realizing it now. Gazzy still looked confused though and asked "so? What does that have to do with anything? I mean yea she's been a little moody and yea she's a pig. But she really could be sick you know?"

"Well yea but Dylan's also been around her more and I think he could sense it too. He probably knew all along and was trying to protect her subconsciously, but she's too oblivious. I could kinda tell too, I don't know how though" Iggy said scratching his head.

"Probably hormones" Nudge said plainly. Yea that might be it, Iggy thought. "But still, she might _not_ be pregnant too" Nudge added.

Gazzy's stomach growled and the all laughed "I'm hungry" Gazzy said pointing out the obvious.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max) <strong>

About five minutes after the Doctor had left I snapped out of it "I'm pregnant?" I finally asked stupidly.

"Were Max, you _were _pregnant" Dylan said simply and angrily.

That's when I looked at him and he was staring at the floor looking pained "Dylan" I said trying to get his attention on me. It didn't work so I said "Dylan look at me" I little more assertive. He raised his head and slowly to look at me.

"Max I swear, next time I see Fang I _will _kill him. No actually, I'll go find him as soon as we get out o-!"

"Dylan shut up! You will _not_ do those things! I couldn't be pregnant. I never _did _anything with him… I'm still a virgin" I say, now thinking of Fang.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me but I think it was Dylan's reaction, not mine. "Really? I thought when Fang and his gang came over the other week that you two… caught up…" he said awkwardly fast.

"Well yea we did" I said. "But not that kind of caught up, we talked about our missions", and some other stuff that might have led to 'catching up' if we'd had more time… I only thought that last part though.

"Oh, I'm sorry. So that must mean you really didn't know you were... you know. Oh and sorry for being kind or mean the other day, and for not telling you sooner. I thought that you knew and were just playing dumb and didn't want to tell me you were pregnant" he said regretfully. I could tell he meant it so I tried to just change the topic to something that was really bugging me.

"You know what I wanna know though?" he looked at me questionably. "How _did_ I get pregnant?"

He looked dumbfounded just know thinking of it, then angry. "I want to know that too now that you mentioned it" He said.

I was starting to get really sleepy and yawned. Dylan looked at me and smiled "what?" I asked.

"Nothing" he said shaking his head.

A few minutes passed and then I finally asked "hey, do you know how long I have to stay here?"

"Um no, but I can go ask if you want" I nodded my head "Ok, I'll be right back" he said standing up and leaving the room.

My eyes started to feel really heavy and I just didn't feel like waiting to hear an answer. So I just fell asleep before Dylan came back.

* * *

><p><strong>(Dylan)<strong>

She looks so cute when she yawns. This will probably sound creeperish, but she's pretty when she sleeps too. Well actually she's always pretty; I think she is the most beautiful girl ever. I always feel weird thinking how I was 'programed' to love her. But I honestly know that even if I hadn't been made to like her, I would anyway. But enough about that, I have to find the doctor so Max can get an answer.

I walked around until I found the doctor that came to her room earlier. He was talking to a nurse in the hallway and when he saw me he pushed the nurse away and started walking to me. "Is everything ok?" he asked scared.

"Uh yea, I just wanted to know how long we have to stay here."

"Oh I talked to Jeb about that and we think you should be fine to leave by tomorrow. Anything else?" He asked relaxing a little.

"No, that's it. Well actually, are the others still in the room you gave us?"

"I think I heard a nurse say there were some kids in the cafeteria eating everything. Could that be them?" he says and waits for any more questions.

"Yea, probably. Thanks" I say and he walks away. Now I have to go tell Max and then I'll go find the flock and tell them to get ready.

When I got to Max's room and saw she was asleep I kissed her forehead, and went off to find the others.

I finally found them back in our room. They had all just eaten and were having a discussion about hospital food being better than airplane food. I opened the door and they all looked at me, Nudge stopping mid-sentence. I walked in and stood there for a few moments. Iggy was the one who broke the awkward silence by asking an equally awkward question "did you have sex with Max?"

Oh boy… "No Iggy I didn't" before I could add anything else Nudge chimed in.

"So who's the baby's daddy?" she asked excitedly.

"Um, guys I don't know if Max wants to tell you guys or if we should just talk about this when we get home. Well I guess I could just tell you know, but talk about it tomorrow" I could tell they were getting impatient with me since it sounded like I was avoiding the question.

"Yea just do that, now come on tell us!" Nudge says quickly.

"Ok… Um well, we don't know who the dad was; and I say _was_ because… Guys, um she lost the baby" I say quickly trying to just rip the bandage off. I could feel my jaw tighten and felt sadness for Max. She didn't deserve this, she should have been able to choose and actually know if she had a child growing inside her. What if someone drugged her and rapped her? Maybe that's why she doesn't remember anything. When I find the sick bastard who did this I'm gonna rip their head off with my teeth!

They were all in a little bit of shock but Nudge got out of it when she saw me "Um, Dylan? Why are you making those faces? Are you ok?" She asked worriedly.

"Yea, I'm fine" I say and turn around to think about what to do now. We had to figure this whole Max thing out now, someone could be after us again. We would have to put the whole Angel rescue mission off for a while. I could sense everyone getting out of their shock and they started to get worried and antsy.

I've never tried this but I guess there's a first time for everything right? Also I had to start testing my power, so I tried to calm them all. They instantly relaxed, but I felt all twitchy now. "Whoa, what was that?" they all asked at once. "You felt that too?" they asked at each other and then laughed.

"Oh yea I forgot to tell you all, I have a new power" I said trying to make myself calm down too. "I can control emotions" I tried to explain sine they all got confused.

"That's so cool!" Gazzy exclaimed.

I smiled then remembered what I came here to do in the first place. I checked my phone for the time; it's about eleven, I should get them to bed soon. "Ok guys we should be ok to leave tomorrow but I'm guessing Max will need to rest up for a while. I think we might have to move to a new location too, since someone might be watching us again. So tomorrow we'll leave and we'll have to put off any missions for a while till Max heals completely ok?" I paused for a second to see if everyone had any objections but they were listening to my plans intently and nodding. "Ok so get ready now because we'll probably go as soon as Max wakes up tomorrow" They all nodded and started to go to bed since they didn't need to pack anything. I walked up to Iggy "watch out for them ok? You're in charge for now, and I'm going to stay with Max in case anything happens" he nodded and then I added "goodnight guys, see you tomorrow" a little louder so the others could hear.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max)<strong>

**the next morning**

I woke with the feeling of something on my wrist. When I woke up I got scared of what I saw and jumped a little. This caused the nurse who was taking out the things on my writs to jerk her hand up, and accidently rip the skin on my wrist a some. I cried out in pain as my wrist started bleeding. As the nurse started saying sorry about a billion times I heard Dylan- beside me- growl. Yea he _growled_, what the hell? Apparently he hadn't seen it was my fault because then he got up and started to go for the nurse but I screamed "Dylan, stop" as I held my wrist to stop the bleeding "that was my fault!"

"I'm so sorry!" the nurse said and went for the door "I'll go get something to try to stop the bleeding!" she said going quickly out the door.

"Does your super spit thing work on other people?" I asked Dylan wincing. This made him quit glaring at the door where the nurse had just disappeared through, and look back at me.

"No, sorry it doesn't. It just works on my body" he says ruefully.

"Can you try though? Just in case?" he looked at me doubtfully "please" I added.

"Fine Max, but I really don't think it'll work. When Dr. Hans had me he tested my saliva on other people's wounds to see if it would fix them but it never worked. Nothing ever happened" he said as he walked around the room getting a paper towel wet at the sink. He came and sat back in his chair by my bed and looked at me "Max I need to get the blood from your wrist so my saliva will go in" he said holding out his hand. I slowly gave him and winced again as he dabbed my blood away. "Wow Max, you're so stupid" he said looking at my wrist.

"Hey!" I said feeling insulted. My wrist wasn't bleeding as badly now so you could see how deep it was. I guess it was kinda sad that I did this to myself…

He looked at my wrist and shook his head. He then got some saliva on his thumb and put it to my wrist. I jumped a little because I didn't expect it to sting. He looked at me and said "does that sting?" I nodded "oh then it might be working" he added smiling.

"Oh yey" I said forgetting the small sting. "Why does it sting though?" I asked trying to pass the time, even though it only takes a few second it felt like a long time.

"I think it has something to do with the cells trying to repair themselves faster than normal" he says taking his thumb away. "Would you look at that!" he said happily "it worked" he added looking at me now with a smile.

Aww his smile's so cute, haha. I looked at my wrist and saw a faint little line where a gory cut had once been.

"I got it you guys!" the nurse said rushing back in with bandages, some bottles of antiseptic and other stuff. She went over to me and saw my wrist "is this one of those things the doctor told me not to ask about?" she asked shocked seeing how in just a couple of minutes my wrist was completely healed.

"Yea probably" I said.

"Oh, ok I won't ask then. So I'll go give your doctor some papers on your current condition and if he says you're ok then you can leave ok hun?" she said while going to check over the machines I was once hooked onto. She turned them off and walked to the doors "oh and again, I am soooo sorry. I'm a little new so I moved the I V too much and scared you" she said really sounding sorry.

"It's fine" I said since it was actually my fault, but no one had to know that.

After the nurse left I stretched my legs out on the bed and stretched. I took the covers off and sat up just now noticing that I was in a hospital gown. Well this isn't awkward at all… "Hey where are my clothes?" I ask looking around.

Dylan gets up and goes in the mini bathroom the room had. He walks out with a small pile of my clothes and hands them to me. I take my underwear and put them on under this backless thing. As I was awkwardly hooking my bra up the doctor walked in.

The doctor came in looking at some papers. He looked up at me and asked "how are you feeling?"

"I feel better" I say truthfully while putting my hand back down.

"Ok that's good, could you get up and walk around for me?" he asks.

"Um, sure" I say. I winced a little when I put pressure on my injured leg but walked around anyway.

"Does that hurt?" he asked.

"Just a little" I say.

"Ok, could you take your wings out now please?" he asks a little curious now.

I stretch my left wing out a little and I take my right one out a few inches. "Ow ow ow, ok not my right one" I say folding it back in.

"Ok well your right wing was hit in a muscle that I'm guessing you need to open it so you should be fine once you can open it. Now you're free to go, but I wouldn't suggest running or walking too much for maybe two more days so your leg muscles can heal themselves completely and no um… flying at all for a while. At least until you can open your wings up all the way. Try to do some stretches in the mornings too" he said. He looked at his papers again and added "oh also, does your stomach hurt at all when you move or anything?"

I bent sideways a little to see but no pain came "no, I feel fine there" I say surprised.

"Ok well that's good. It might be because of the medication we gave you but if it does hurt later it shouldn't be too bad, just like the leg. Well take care of yourselves you two, bye."

"Bye doc, thanks" I say.

"Thanks" Dylan adds.

When the doctor leaves I take my gown off and reach for my clothes. While putting them on I remember that Dylan was right there. Everyone in the flock always changed in front of everyone else all the time and swim in our underwear so I hadn't really thought about it. But Dylan was sort of a new addition so I wasn't extremely comfortable with what I realized I'd done just yet. I looked at Dylan, jumped up while pulling my zipper closed quickly and say "sorry". He was smiling… Wow way to make it even more awkward Dylan… "Ok, well um where's the flock?" I say blushing while walking to the door.

Dylan gets up and follows me "I'll take us there, come on" he says leading me somewhere.

…

"Ok how are we gonna do this?" Dylan says "you know since Max can't fly" we had walked a few places over to the back of some little restaurant that was almost completely empty and were now trying to figure out how to get home.

"You or Iggy should just carry her since Gazzy and I can't" Nudged suggested.

"It's a little far, if we do that we might have to take turns" Iggy says.

"Ok I guess we'll do that, now come on already" I say getting aggravated since my leg was starting to hurt.

"Ok miss impatient" Iggy says coming over to me and scooping me up bridal-style. I gave a little yelp not expecting him to do that. Everyone took out their wings (excluding myself) and Dylan took the lead, taking us to our temporary little house.

After fifteen minutes or so of flying I noticed Iggy's breathing was getting a little labored "you think we should switch now?" Dylan asked, noticing it too.

"Yea I guess" Iggy says. The whole flock stopped and hovered in the air while the switch off was done. Iggy and Dylan got close to each other and started to move their wing less and quicker so they wouldn't whack each other with their wide wingspans while trading me off. "You got her?" He asked when I felt Dylan's hands under me.

I scooted closer to Dylan's chest and took my arms from Iggy's neck. When I put them around Dylan's he said "Yea" I tensed while Iggy took his hands from under me and backed away slowly. They started to move their wings normally and I released my tension as the fear of falling slowly subsided. It had gotten a little windy now "ok guys let's keep going" Dylan said and I felt his chest vibrate a little from trying to make his voice go over all the wind.

As we were flying my hair (I had to cut it soon) started to hit Dylan's face a bunch so I put my head on his shoulder and see if it would help. It did, also it was actually comfortable and I started to get sleepy. I looked at the side of Dylan's face and he turned his head to look at me too. We both smiled at each other for a moment until I realized my neck was hurting and turned to looked back. The last thing I remember was seeing Nudge's smile and thinking 'since when is Dylan the leader?' before drifting off to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N<strong>** Hey guys the visitor thing is like 112 now! I'm like glowing from happiness:) hahah ok well I'm going to try and update every week instead of every two but I might have to make the chapters a little shorter for that. Please comment so I know your thoughts and that you care! Even if it's with criticism… I can take it… really I can:| just please don't completely ruin all my hopes and dreams. **

**_FTI more reviews=faster story updates:)_**


	4. Safety

**Safety**

I felt so safe, as Dylan and I were running through a meadow. You could hear the faint sound of water rushing by in a small river not too far away from where we were now. Small splashed were also heard from the occasional fish jumping. It was so nice out, everything looked so colorful. The grass so green and lush, flowers of all colors dotting that soft grass, and the sky was beautiful-almost unnaturally clear with only a few puffy clouds. Dylan had been leading us to the edge of the woods, where the clearing of the meadow ended and a thick pine forest began. Once we got to the edge we slowed down and then sat down in pine needles. He reached for my face, cupping my cheek, and started to move closer. As he began to get closer he gently pushed me against the tree I was already almost leaning against. When I couldn't be moved further he stopped pushing and looked into my eyes-his eyes were the brightest shade of turquoise I had ever seen them- and then down at my lips and got even closer. He was almost on top of me when our lips finally met. That kiss was so soft and gentle almost as if he thought I was the most fragile thing in existence. I felt the urge to prove to him that I wasn't as fragile as he made me feel. So I pressed into the kiss. It didn't seem to surprise him and he kissed me harder too, but I kissed him even harder than that and sort of knocked him off balance.

While still connected at the mouth, we toppled over and now he was laying in the pine needles and I was on top of him. I felt his lips try to part mine so I opened my mouth and he shoved his tongue in. We started to tongue wrestle while I put my hands on his shoulders and he wrapped his arms around my waist. We had been making out for a few minute when I suddenly realized we hadn't taken a breath. It didn't feel as though I needed oxygen but I stopped the kiss anyway, just for a second. I sat up on his waist, as he moved his hands over to my stomach and under my shirt while looking at me.

Hey Max Dylan says.

Hey Dylan I say happily.

Max we're here he says to me.

"What?" I ask confused.

"Haha Max, are you sleeping?" I hear someone else say close by. I look around and suddenly everything starts to get dark, then I woke up.

When I open my eyes I see Dylan, who was still carrying me might I add. He was walking now though, not flying, and I saw Iggy to his right and Nudge and Gazzy had already run to our door and were in a heated argument about who got the remote while Nudge fumbled with the keys.

"You were dreaming weren't you?" I hear Iggy ask while chuckling a bit.

"Oh yea, I guess I was" I say recalling it.

"What was it about? You kept smiling" Dylan said looking amused.

"Uh, I don't remember" I lied.

"Oh really?" Iggy asked "cuz you moaned like three times and kept calling Dylan's name."

"No I didn't!" I say defensively and felt my face get hot "did I?" I ask, looking at Dylan.

Dylan looked down at me smiling and said "well I'm pretty sure it was only twice but yea, yea you did."

Ok hope you all don't mind, but I'll just go die now…

We were in the living room now and Nudge and Gazzy saw that I was awake. "Um, I can just walk now Dylan. Thanks" I say getting down from his arms.

"MAX, MAX, MAX! Tell (him/her) that it's my turn to have the remote!" Gazzy and Nudge said at the same time. Ah home sweet home…

…

It was dark out now and I had already tucked the younger kids in and said good night to Iggy and Dylan. I was looking at Fang's blog now, which I did periodically, when I felt a buzz in my jeans. I took my phone out and saw that Fang was calling me. Wow that was weird.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked, almost not believing that it was him.

"Hey, we have to meet up soon I think we might need your all's help" Fang said simply. Those words made me feel like my heart skipped three beats.

"Uh, yea ok when and where?" I say trying to now sound too excited.

"Um let's meet where we'd planned to meet in twenty years and tles etme ni rtehe ydas" he says. Now I knew it was him since he knew better than to actually give positions out on the phone and he knew our secret code.

"Ok we'll see you then. I guess bye then" I say reluctantly.

"Max?" He asks quickly.

"Yea, what is it?" I cautiously ask.

"I… Uhh, never mind. Bye I'll see you then" he says.

"Ok, bye?" I say even though I wanted to know what he'd been about to say.

I hang up the phone and put it on my dresser. I then proceeded to change into my pjs and then flopped on top of my bed, which made a whooshing sound under me. Feeling exhausted I let my wings come out a little.

After about half an hour I decided I was now wide awake and couldn't sleep. So I grabbed a jacket, opened my window and jumped out for a late night flight. I opened my wings up quickly and barely let myself fall a foot before I was up and flapping. I flew for a little while just looking down at the night scene and all of the lights that were shining below. I saw a little lake in a clearing some distance away from the small town we were in and decided to land there.

When I landed I walked up to the lake and saw there was a little dock, so I walked down to the end of it and sat at its edge. I thought about putting my feet in the water but decided against it remembering how cold it was out. I looked up to the sky and saw that there was a full moon. It looked so nice out tonight that I felt bad I never take the flock out at night to just look at the stars. Sighing, I lay down still leaving my legs dangling from the edge of the dock and swinging them a little bit. The sky was clear and you could see all the stars out here.

I was laying there staring up trying to find any constellation but gave up since I didn't even know one. So I just looked up and try to enjoy this free time but couldn't because I kept thinking of the flock, Dylan, and mostly Fang. I closed my eyes for maybe two seconds when I heard someone say "you're gonna catch a cold" which made me jump a little.

I knew who it was though so I wasn't scared "how'd you find me Dylan?" I ask scooting over some so he could sit by me.

He sat by me with his arms out behind him and looked up before answering "well I heard you go out so I followed you, you got a huge head start though so it took a while to catch up but I could see you the whole time."

"God you're such a stalker" I say joking making him chuckle.

He lay back like me, and looked at the stars like I was "do you know the constellations?" he asked still looking up.

"Sadly, I don't" I tell him.

"Hahah don't be, I only know one myself" he says. "Ok you see those three starts close to each other up there?" he asks while pointing up.

I follow his finger and see the three slightly brighter stars he was pointing to "yea I see them" I say nodding.

He puts his arms behind his head and asks "and then you see the other four bright starts around them? There's off to each corner, not very far away from them, and make a sort of hour glass shape."

"Yea I think I do."

A few minutes later…

"Well that's the Orion constellation" he explains.

"Oh that's so cool" I say "I wish the flock was here so you could have shown them too" I say after a while.

"I can some other time. Oh and before I forget Max, we need to move soon. We should have today but I completely forgot and everyone was really tired."

"Why?" I ask him confused.

"Because I think we're being watched."

"When aren't we…" I say almost to myself. "Yea sure we'll move first thing tomorrow morning. Oh and we're going to meet up with Fang in three days."

"Ok" he says sounding a little disappointed.

"What's wrong?" I ask him. Suddenly I noticed it'd gotten darker. I looked up and saw that there were dark clouds coming in.

"No, it's nothing." After a while of awkward silence he spoke up again "so what was that dream about?" he asks smiling.

"…you" I say a little reluctantly.

"Well I knew that much, but what about me?" he asks again.

"I- I don't really remember it" I say trying to end the conversation.

After a while he asks "Max, where do I stand in your mind?" he asks and I just look at him. Seeing my confusion he tries to clarify "I mean you know that I love you, but what do you think of me?" he asks and gets on his side to look at me.

"Um" I say "I'm not sure" I say honestly. I never really thought about it, I mean I know I sort of like him, a little, maybe… But I also still liked Fang. Even though it felt like Fang had stomped on my heart then spit on it-

"Max a simple 'I don't like you' would have been enough" he says a little hurt.

Then I remember he could feel my emotions and realized I was getting angry "oh no Dylan it- I was just thinking of Fang" I say trying to fix it.

"So you hate Fang?" he asks happily.

"No! I don't hate him; I just hate what he did" and then it started to rain. It wasn't even light at first; it was an all-out shower from the first second. "Oh my god!" I scream getting up "come on, we have to find somewhere to go!" I tell Dylan as I grab his hand and pull him up to me. The rain was like liquid ice- not even joking, so when he slams into me, since I'd pulled him up to me so hard, I felt reluctant to move from his warmth.

We stay together for a moment while he smiles and says "you look so cute when you're wet."

I say "this is so not the time…" but smile anyways.

We run to some cave that was in the surrounding forest as fast as we can and then collapse on the cave floor dripping wet. "Well that was exciting" Dylan says after a while.

"Yup, sure was" I agree feeling glad that he forgot what we'd been talking about.

Dylan was to my right. We were sitting with our legs stretched out in front of us, both facing the cave's entrance, and our hands out behind us for support. "So… how do you feel about me?" Damn it!

"I already told you…" I say turning to look out the mouth of the cave instead of him; at the rain "I don't know."

He scoots a little closer and holds the left side of my face with his right hand. Then lightly turns my face to him, before kissing me. I was a little caught off guard but didn't try to resist. I realized soon that it felt nice, and I felt safe. The storm outside just kind of drifted away quickly and the only thing I was aware of was Dylan and that I wanted him.

I guess Dylan sensed my want because he leaned more into the kiss, and more into me. I fell back a little and he was leaning over me still kissing me. He started to open his mouth, I did the same (deja vu –my dream), and his tongue went in my mouth. While we were tongue wrestling he was still coming closer and closer. Pretty soon he was on top of me but I could tell he was still holding some of his weight with his hands on either side of me so he wouldn't crush me. He came off my lips and started trailing kisses down my neck which made me feel all tingly.

Then he looked up at me with a smile that made my heart jump in my chest. "Then how do you feel about that" he asked.

I just smile. "I'm pretty sure you know how I felt about that" I say.

He shrugs "I just want to hear you say it."

"Well, I might have liked it" I say.

He smiles and runs his fingers through my hair "you're so beautiful Max" he tells me now caressing my cheek. I blush "really Max, you are" he informs me.

"Thanks" I tell him "and you know, you're actually not that bad yourself" and I grab his shirt and pull him back down to me.

After making out for a few minutes (and I was on top of him now) Dylan reached under my shirt and stared to rub my stomach.

I moaned and taking that as approval he went back to the hem of my shirt. He took my shirt off and put it off to the side. He then started to trail his fingers down my back a few times but I made him stop. "Hey if my shirt comes off so does yours mister" I say and start to take off his shirt. Now, I don't know about him, but I could barely see a thing with it being night _and _with the clouds covering the moon. But I could see enough to think '_Man he's got muscles' _when I take it off. I could see his well outlined six pack below me.

He started to trail his fingers up and down my back again and then he came to my bra strap. He paused for a second and looked in my eyes. I then realized that I was cold to the point of goose bumps so I shook my head and got off of him reluctantly and put my shirt back on.

"Oh sorry Max, I didn't mean to do anything you weren't ready for" Dylan says sadly sitting back up.

"No Dylan, it's not that. It's just- I don't think this is the right time or place. Sorry" I tell him remorsefully.

"Aww Max, are you cold?" He asks.

"No" I lie.

"Max, I can see your goose bumps" he informs me.

"How? I ask "it's like pitch black in here."

"Oh I guess my sight power thing's got some night vision too" he guesses.

"Oh that's like Iggy, _before _they blinded him…" I say a little sadly.

"Maybe since his sight came back a little he can see a little in the dark too" he says trying to cheer me up.

"Yea" I say and my teeth start to chatter. Man it really has to be cold if it's getting _me _to do this. Since our bodies run slightly warmer than regular humans we usually never get cold so this is a little new to me. Kinda reminds me of when we went to Antarctica.

"See, you are cold" he says and goes to where my jacket was lying. He comes to me and helps me put it on.

"Why aren't you cold?" I ask him noticing that he was still shirtless.

"I am a little" he tells me.

"You don't act or look it at all" I point out.

"Well I am" he says and goes to put his shirt back on and then his jacket.

He comes over to me as I stand up and go to a wall of the cave. I sit there and wait for him to sit too before I say "we'll have to stay here for tonight. We can't really fly in that" I point out to the outside of the cave. It was still pouring buckets.

"Ok" he says. I lay down and he does the same. The cave wall and floor were colder than I thought so I scoot down a little so my head wasn't so close to the wall, and Dylan does the same. "Here, lift your head" he says and puts his arm there for me to use as a pillow.

"Thanks" I tell him as I put my head back down. Wtf I was over here shivering but he was really warm, what's with that? I was looking away from him and I felt him move closer to me and put his other arm over my waist so we were spooning. It actually felt kind of nice, I thought to myself. I got a chill that didn't really have to do with coldness but I guess he thought it did so he took out one of his wings and put it over us too; like a blanket. I didn't complain though cuz it was warm. So I snuggled back, closer to him and quickly fell asleep feeling very safe in Dylan's arms.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N<strong>** sorry Fax fans/ Mylan hating people. I had to do that, it's part of my story so you'll just have to endure some more of Mylan moments but trust me there'll be some Fax soon;)**


	5. F My Life

**A.N**** Thank you for reviewing guys! I'm looking for a beta right now, so soon you won't have to put up with any mistakes I miss:D cheers! **

**WolfsShadow- Thanks I appreciate it:) and I'll try my hardest **

**Dopeycookiemonster- Sorry I got the idea to make something else go wrong in Max's life. But thanks for telling me your thoughts and just for you I'll skip a bit and make some FAX in the next chapter or the one after that haha:) **

* * *

><p><strong>F MY LIFE!<strong>

I wake up to see that it'd stopped raining. I notice that we're in the exact position we fell asleep in and don't feel like moving but I know that I have to. Then I remember that we left the flock.

I shoot up quickly making Dylan jump back some and the jacket that he'd put on me fell. "Well good morning to you too" he tells me rubbing his eye and yawning.

"Sorry, yea good morning. But we have to leave now, we left the flock and what if something happened to them" I say getting worried and walking towards the entrance.

"I think they'll be fine Max" Dylan says picking up his jacket and coming to my side.

We took out our wings and lifted off shortly after. I was trying not to pour out the speed, he was trying to keep up, and to tell you the truth he was actually doing a pretty good job at it.

**About fifteen minutes later…**

"NO GODDAMNIT, WHY!" I shout at the empty bathroom. Dylan and I had quickly checked all of the rooms in this stupid apartment thing and came up with the same result. Empty, all fucking empty!

"Max calm down, I'm mad too but we'll find them. It'll be ok" he says trying to calm me.

"No, it's all my fault! Every time I leave, something always goes wrong! And this time I knew we were being watched. How could I be so stupid?" I say, my anger now turning to sorrow as Dylan sinks down to where I just now realized I was on the floor.

I was sitting on the floor with face in my palms feeling like an idiot and he wraps an arm around me saying "it's not your fault Max; don't beat yourself up for it. Anyway, it's my fault too and I know it's horrible but we _will_ find them. I swear my life on it. You know how much I love this flock, you all took me in, and I'll do anything for you."

That did make the hopeless feeling in the pit of my stomach lighten a bit, but now I felt like an idiot for breaking down like that when I was supposed to be finding whoever did this. "Thanks Dylan" I tell him as I try to regain any dignity I have left and get up, grabbing his hand to pull him up too. "Ok first we have to find out who took them, let's spread out and look for clues. You stay up here I'll look downstairs, k?"

He nods and smiles getting out of the bathroom and going to look.

About half an hour later I was taking a break because I was looking in the same places over and over again and I was getting ready to scream and scratch at the walls or something. So I sat on the couch and looked up at the door.

How in the hell could I have missed something like that?

We had gotten in through my window so we didn't pay much attention to the front door in our desperate (and failing) attempt at finding the flock. But the door had a huge hole where the door handle had been. There were also a few scratches in the middle and a piece of semi crumbled paper stuck in the handle hole.

I turned my head over my shoulder to the stairs and screamed "Dylan!"

As I was walking to the door I heard him run down and I think he stumbled "Yea? Did you find something?" He asked while I was smoothed the paper out.

"Um I think I did" I say deciding to not bring up his stumble. I look at the paper which read-

'_Max, _

_If you want to have your flock to be safe again, come to these coordinates.'_

Dylan and I quickly went to the laptop and typed in the coordinates at the bottom of the page. They were somewhere in Wyoming, not too far away, that was good.

Right then my stomach decided it was an excellent time to feel hungry and growled. I remembered we hadn't eaten anything at all today and it was already like twelve "let's eat something quick and then go."

"Ok" He says walking to the kitchen. I grabbed some turkey from the fridge and he grabbed bread. I ate four sandwiches and got up "hey could you make a few more so we can take them on the road?" I ask him. He nods while chewing his fifth sandwich and goes back to the kitchen.

I quickly go to my room and grabbed my back pack so he can put them in. My stuff was already all in there. We always keep our things packed just in case we have to leave in a hurry so I knew everyone else's things were packed too. I left my bag on the table so Dylan could fill it with the food and then went in to everyone's rooms and grab their bags. I walked in the living room while stuffing Iggy, Gazzy, and Dylan's bags in Nudge's, then added the laptop in there too.

She had begged to get a slightly bigger bag so she could fit in two extra shirts. I finally gave in when she showed me a bag that was literally weightless and promised to not talk for the rest of the day. And plus, the bag was still considered somewhat small.

I put Nudge's bag on the table as Dylan zipped up my pack. He held it out to me with one hand and reached for Nudge's with the other "no, I can carry it" I tell him, while reaching for the other.

"Max don't be stubborn right now! I know you can carry it, but this one's yours and we don't have time to argue right now. Just take it!" he tells me holding my bag closer to me.

"Don't tell me what to do!" I tell him but grab my bag anyway, for the sake of time, but glaring at him.

As if realizing what he just did he says "sorry" and looks down at the floor.

"Whatever" I say and go to the door. He follows me and we both take our wings out seeing that no one was near. I squat and jump forcefully into the air. Flapping my wings only twice, I'm already ten feet in the air when Dylan finally takes off.

We had about four or five hours of flying and I wasn't planning on taking a break. Good thing we weren't out of shape.

**Five hours later…**

We were close to the coordinates that we were sent to so I made us go down. We hid behind some trees so we could eat something before going in and to hide the bags. We had already eaten some of the things when we stopped about two hours into the flight. Turns out we (mostly me) weren't meant to fly more than about two hours. Mental note: I have to train the whole flock to fly longer distances.

When we finished eating a sandwich or two I hid the two packs in some tree and went down to Dylan "ok, you ready?"

"Yup" he said nodding once.

I take a deep breath and say "ok, let's do this." We take our wings out again and fly to the top of the building that we were supposed to go to. Considering the lack of guards, I'm guessing that already this is a trap. I mean I knew it was a trap already but this was a kind of trap in a trap… If that makes sense… Well whatever we're on top of the frickin roof and my flock is inside of this building, so trap or not we're going in!

We look around for some place to get in through for a minute until Dylan calls me over to a vent in the middle of the roof that he got open. I go in first and wait for him to squeeze in too and close the vent up behind him.

We crawl in there for a while until the vent splits into two ways that both go down and seem thinner so it looked like either way we went, it'd be hard (if even possible) to get back out of. "Which way do you think we should go?" I ask Dylan behind me.

"I have no clue, it's your call" he tells me.

Well if we pick the wrong way I guess we could just find a way out and go from there. Ok then we'll go lef-_'go right Max'_

I usually hate the voice but this time it wasn't being all fortune cookie on me so, Oh My Gosh!

'_Voice, Your back!' _I think at it.

'_Max, go right and you'll get to the flock quicker.'_

Well I guess it didn't want to talk. We'll go right then "we're going right."

"As you wish" Dylan says behind me and I start to crawl to the right.

I had to squeeze some, but I made it through the thin part, and instantly knew I wouldn't be able to get back out "ok, it's your turn now" I tell him trying to turn around a little.

"Ok" he said hesitantly. He got his head through but when it was his shoulders' turn he started to struggle. He got part of his chest through when he really got stuck and I tried to turn all the way around to help him.

I found a way to turn around but when I saw him I knew he wouldn't be able to go through. I might be able to push him out though "ok Dylan, listen to me. I'm going to push you out and then you have to get out ok?" He was about to argue so I added "you can find another entrance, but I can't get back out."

"But Max I don't want to leave you" he says almost begging.

"Don't argue with me" I say sternly as I push his shoulders out. I stop for a second to say "you're gonna have to help me a little here."

He unwillingly starts backing out while I push him and he finally gets free. He tries to turn around but the vent is too small so he just starts backing out saying "I'll find you as soon as I can." I nod, turn around and begin to make my way through the vent.

I pass a few holes in the vent that look down into rooms but they're all empty. When I got to the fifth one I was expecting to see an empty room so I was pleasantly surprised to see some movement when I passed it. I stopped crawling and went back a little so I could get a better look in the room.

Ahhh! There they were! I was so happy that I almost started to scratch at the vent for it to open. But I quickly remembered to check out the room first.

The whole room was a cream color it actually looked pretty homey. There was one door that was closed and probably locked. There were four couches, one on each wall of the rectangular room and a table with some magazines on it in the center. There was also a plant in each corner of the room, the whole thing looked a little like a waiting room. Iggy was sitting tensely in the middle of the couch facing the door, Gazzy to his right. Nudge was curiously looking at the magazines and after a moment she cautiously reached for one.

When she looked back up she saw me and looked for a few seconds while I put my finger to my lips then pointed down at the vent and grabbed a bar. She nodded and quietly went back to where Iggy and Gazzy were. She whispered "don't react, Max is up in the vents and she needs help getting out, tell Gazzy" he told Gazzy and right as Gazzy was about to say something Iggy put his hand up in a hush motion. They all stood still and right as I was starting to think that maybe Iggy's hearing really was going away, the door opened.

Dr. Hans came in with Dylan being flanked from behind by two huge dudes.

WAIT DR. HANS?

Yes it was him! What was he doing here? What did he have to do with this? I'm so confused…

"You can stay here Dylan, with the rest of your flock. At least until Max decides to show herself" Dr. G says as he looks around the room "are any of you hungry?"

"What are you doing?" Dylan asked, probably shocked that he was holding them captive. He'd thought of the Dr. as his father before he joined the flock; we tried to make him see he's really the enemy. But I guess Dylan still failed to see all that he's done (killing Fang- cough cough).

"I'm not doing anything bad if that's what you're implying. Max may have brainwashed all of you to think that I'm a bad guy. But honestly, I'm really not. I am only trying to help save our future!" Dr. G.H exclaims. Dylan looked a little sad but didn't respond.

Seeing that no one reacts to that, he shakes his head a little and walks out, locking the door as he leaves.

Everyone was still for a moment until Dylan turned back from the door to look at everyone. I had moved a little so Hans couldn't see me and now I moved back so I could silently ask Iggy if it was all clear. Dylan's head shot up to look at the spot I was at and he smiled.

"It's ok to come out now, they're down the hall now" Iggy says from below as he gets up.

Nudge and Gazzy get up too and looked up to see me. They smiled and I smiled back. I looked at the vent and took the little bars out a little surprised they didn't have bolts. After I took them out I sat on the edge and then jumped down, landing on all fours. "Is everyone ok? I'm so sorry I wasn't there!" I loud whispered.

"We're ok, it's ok" Gazzy said smiling.

"Yea, it's ok. We were actually worried about you Max! I mean when we woke up you weren't there and we thought they got you too and then they took us here but you weren't here and they didn't tell us anything. And OMG Dr. Hans is involved so it can't be good and-"

"Ok Nudge I think she's caught up now" Iggy says.

"Hahah. Ok guys now we have to figure out how to get out" I say.

"Max, Max, Max. Did you really think we weren't aware of your presence here?" I hear a Hans say on speakers somewhere in the room.

A moment later he comes in the room with the two guards again. As he closes the door behind him I see that there are two more guards outside. The two guards in the room position themselves on either side of the door as Hans sits on the couch next to the door. "Please, sit. I have a few matters that I'd like to discuss with you" he says motioning to the couch opposite of his. I look at him for a moment so he adds "I would like you to consider it, but you only have to listen, is that ok?"

I nod hesitantly, say "I guess", and sit down slowly. Dylan sits to my right, Iggy to my left, Nudge on the arm rest by Iggy, and Gazzy on my lap. "Ok shoot" I tell G.H. when we all get situated.

"You remember you got pregnant a short while ago?" I tense at his words.

'_Great way to start this Hans!' _I think. What, had he done that? I bet he did!

"Well I did that" he informs me.

I start to get angry which made Dylan twitchy beside me, and then he made a low kind or growl noise from deep in his throat, wtf? I look at Dylan and he was glaring at the Dr.

"And it was Dylan's child" he says quickly, that made Dylan shut up. Wow Dylan…

"But now hear me out! As I told you before, the Gen 77 kids really need a leader, now more than ever. There've been on many training missions but they all always fail because they always argue and fight with each other. They need a head; a leader Max. They need someone who knows what they're doing and has experienced, like you with the flock. They need someone strong willed and tough, they need you Max."

I stayed silent and someone to my left coughed.

"And after you're gone they'll need someone like you, someone sure to take over where you left off. So there won't be violence when a new leader is needed." He paused for a second.

"We already went over this G", he made a face at the name but let it go, "and I already said no."

"Max we really need this!" he exclaims while scooting to the edge of his seat and waving his arms. "I've already lost Jeb's support in the matter; he says this kind of thing should be done naturally or something. But you have to understand we're running out of time! If at the very least you could produce an heir-"

"Ok even if I _did_ agree to this, which I would _never_ do, you're still not getting that I am _fifteen_! I already have things I have to do, I have to find one of my flock members, and I have to lead my own flock!" I tell him getting aggravated that he was still on this, after I told him no.

"Well Dylan could take over the flock while you're not able to, and then after the child is born we could take it off your hands so we could train it" he says like it was the most logical thing to do.

This made me angrier than ever and I stood up quickly, forgetting Gazzy was on me and almost made him fall on the floor. I caught him though and then charged at the guy yelling "I would never give you my child you monster!"

Dylan had stood up too and ran after me, grabbing me from behind before the guards could get me. "My hands are tied Max, I'm running out of options and if you don't do this willingly well, we're going to have to force you" Dr. Hans says.

I was struggling half-heartedly against Dylan's grip when Dr. G got up. "You are _not _leaving us in here!" I yell at him.

He looks back and says "well it's only you we really need but if we let the others go they might try something."

"Guys, we're getting out of here!" I yell back and Dylan releases his light hold on my arms.

"Guards!" Dr. G screams. What a coward.

One guard that was inside the room grabbed my arm. I pulled away which got my arm free easily. I kicked him in the stomach which made him go flying with his arms and legs out in front of him, hit the wall, and lay there in a crumbled heap. "Really, humans?" I yell at Hans. Then the one guard outside the room grabs me from behind and this one's a little stronger, still human, but stronger. I try to elbow him or something but he has his arms around me in such a way that I can't move.

As I was doing that Gazzy had beet up the other guy inside the room and he was on the ground groaning in pain. Iggy had gone to the guard and punched him in the stomach making the air wheeze out of him. He regained his posture and took a swing at Iggy's face. Iggy caught the guy's fist in his left hand without even flinching as Nudge ran to them and kicked the guard's side making him hit the hallway wall with his side and slide down unconscious.

As a struggled with the guy on my back someone tapped him shoulder. As he turned Dylan pressed a stop on his shoulder making him slump down and release me. Dylan grabbed him and threw him by his sleeping friend by the wall. All in all it had only taken us about ten seconds to beat these guys up.

"Where'd he go?" I ask at no one in particular.

"I heard him run that way!" Iggy says pointing to the right at the end of the hallway.

I run there with the others following me. When I get to the end of the long hall and turn right and see Hans run inside a room at the end of that hall and close the door. "He's over there!" I say pointing at the door as I run. When we get there I pause at the door as they all pile in around me. I look grab the door handle and look back at my flock, they all nod and I open the door.

"Ohemge" Nudge whispers.

"What? What's going on? I can't see" Iggy says confused.

"There's a bunch of robots on both side of the room hanging from metal things. I think they're charging" Gazzy explains to him.

Hans finally shows himself at the end of this long room. He walks to the middle-back of the room and says "Ok Max, I'll give you two options. One you can stay here and help us for a while, I'll let the flock go, and leave you alone after you help us. Or two you can try to escape, I'll send all these robots after you, and I will get my way."

I freeze. There weren't enough robots to get us. I didn't know how strong they were but I had no doubt in my mind that Hans would put up a big fight for this. I look back at my flock. Iggy had on a begging look, Gazzy shook his head with a pleading face, and Nudge looked at me and said "no Max don't do it, you can't leave us, we can take him."

I looked at Dylan who had a questioning look on his face I shook my head at him and turned back to Dr. G; my mind now made up on what to do. "No Max, don't do this!" Nudge yelled almost crying as I walk towards Hans. Dylan put out his arm to stop Nudge when she started towards me "What are you doing? We can't just let her go!" she screams at him.

I stop when I'm close to him and he smiles. I reach in my hoodie pocket and his smile turns into a frown. I quickly grab and throw a knock-out smoke bomb I'd gotten from Gazzy's pack earlier and throw it at Hans as he screams "Maximum!" and swats at the air while walking backwards. I run back to my flock and wave them out as he hits the floor.

It took us a while to get out but there didn't seem to be anyone else around so we didn't get held up anymore. When we finally did get out I led them to where we'd hidden the bags. I put two others small explosives I'd gotten from Gazzy's bag back in and gave out everyone's bags. Then we took off to find somewhere to stay.

As we were flying I realized I hadn't told them something "hey guys, I forgot to tell you. In two days we have to go meet up with Fang."

"Yey!" Nudge squealed from behind. Gazzy and Iggy smiled but Dylan didn't react.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.<strong>** Hey guys sorry this one took longer but I had so much homework this week I don't think it was legal. I had it done yesterday but I don't know what I pressed and I deleted everything so I had to write most of the story again. No word from the betas I asked so I don't know about that…:(**

**Love yall!**

**~L**


	6. Burnt Marshmallow

**A.N-**** I got a beta, yey!**

* * *

><p><strong>Burnt Marshmallow<strong>

"Will you quit that?" I ask Gazzy forcefully.

We had gotten to the place, where we trained with hawks long ago, a day early. I had agreed to meet Fang here; him with his group and me with the flock.

Everyone was getting bored since I said no using the laptop to save the battery it had left and we didn't have any other real form of entertainment. So Gazzy had come up with a little game: see how many times he could throw rocks (compressed sand) over my head, to the cave wall, until I ripped his head off.

My hair was now full of sand, Nudge was drawing things in the sand and seeing if Iggy could guess what they were, Dylan was sitting crossed legged close to the cave entrance looking out, and you know what Gazzy was doing…

Gazzy grabbed another rock so I got up quickly. "Guys listen up!" They all stopped what they were doing and looked at me as I said "ok, I'm going to the nearest store and get some things. You all stay here so I can do it really fast and when I get back we can do something fun."

"Thank you!" Nudge squealed. Iggy looked a little hurt so she looked at him and added "not that this wasn't fun or anything…"

I walked to my backpack and grabbed some money. Then I walked to the entrance and crouched down to Dylan's ear "you're in charge. So please, protect them with your life." I whispered to him so Iggy wouldn't hear and be hurt that I didn't put him in charge.

He nodded and said "get back soon ok?"

"Will do" I say and then start to walk forward, then began to run. When I got closer to the edge I jumped out of the high cave. I fell for a few seconds then spread my wings and caught a great air current that pushed me high above. I flapped a few times to get higher and then looked back. I was about 100 meters away from the cave now and I could see my flock. Iggy, Nudge and Gazzy were in the back, I guess drawing in the cave floor. Dylan was still sitting in front of them all, looking at me now. He lifted his hand and I smiled back before turning forward again and accelerating.

About five minutes (what would have taken like thirty- normal speed) I was almost to the store. I landed by a tree and leaned against it to catch my breath. That was the first time I'd used my power for five minutes straight and I was beat! I was thankful that I used it every once in a while so I wouldn't be out of practice.

After my breathing went back to normal I fixed my hoodie to hide my wing holes, and then my hair so I didn't look like some random hobo.

I was walking along the sidewalk, maybe a block away from the store now. I noticed that there were two guys walking my way. One looking at me (brunet) while the second guy (blond) whispered in his ear; something I didn't quite catch (even with my hearing) because of all the other noises. But I caught some words like "chick", "get", and "alone". With that I could kind of summarize what he said, and they better not be talking about me or they'll get what's coming to them…

"Hey girl" the first guy said when they got close, while checking me out once. "You wanna hang out with us for a while?"

I didn't want to make a scene and just wanted to get back to my flock as soon as possible, so I looked him in the eye and very calmly told him "no thanks" then tried to keep walking.

But they got in my way. The second guy now spoke up, "come on, just for a little while" he mock-begged.

"Yea, come on" the first guy said coming closer and kind of grabbing my left arm while the other guy did the same with my other arm.

I struggled a little but again- I didn't want to attract attention. "Let go. Now" I told them lowly through my teeth.

They wouldn't so I decided, that since we were by an alley and they were taking me in there, that I would beat the snot out of these two idiots when we got there so bad that they would never even look at a girl again.

**Five minutes later…**

I cracked my knuckles loudly as I walked back out, smiling at the ground. I feel a little bad for those guys. I mean since I hadn't fought erasers or anything in so long, I had a lot of tension built up in me. You could hear low moans of pain behind me, in the alley, and I can assure you that those creeps won't be bugging anyone else for a real long time.

When I finally looked up, you'd never guess who I saw.

It was Star! That skinny little blond girl from Fang's gang! She was looking at me and when she saw that I'd spotted her she ran across the street to me. In less than a second she was beside me the first thing she said to me was- "you stink. When's the last time you took a shower?"

I frowned at her "thanks" I say sarcastically. I'd forgotten what it was like talking to this girl. "-And what about you?" I ask a little harshly, feeling like I needed to regain my superiority "what happened to you? It looks like you fought with a dirty raccoon-" I looked her over. Her (once) nice, rich-girl clothes were now worn, dirty, and looked like every square inch had at least one scratch "-and it won." The only reason that I wasn't in a completely bad mood though was because seeing Star meant that Fang and his gang were close by too! "So where's the rest of your group?" I asked her, trying to not sound too excited. I think I failed at that though.

"Cute." She said sarcastically. "But I didn't want to wait in a long bus ride with them, so I came here by myself. I think they should be here later, tonight maybe?" she said thoughtfully. It was around noon now.

"Oh well I was going to get some stuff for the flock, if you want to come with me" she looked at me like she was grossed out. "…Unless you want to wait out here for the rest of the day."

"Ok I'll go" she says a little irritated, coming to my side. "So, nice job beating those kids up" she said trying to start a conversation as we walked in the little store.

"Oh, you saw that?" I ask as I grab a basket.

"Yea I thought it was funny" she says smiling, as she grabs one too. "I was actually going to take do it if you didn't. I hate it when guys think girls are weaker and they can do whatever they want to them. Ratchet was like that but he's ok now, I guess. But he's still annoying."

She reminded me of Nudge somehow. I wonder why…

"So what are we getting? I'm starved and I didn't bring my pills" she said as she looked around the isles that we passed by.

"Everything" I said answering her question. It was quiet for a moment then I wondered, "Your pills?" I asked her.

"Oh yea" she said stopping by the cereal aisle and slowly grabbing boxes as she talked "when we went to this doomsday place one time, we found a lab part that developed a bunch of things to help the people they experimented on. To improve their talents, fight the side-effects or whatever. You know? And well anyway we found what we call energy pills, they're for the ones that burn through calories quick, like me. So we took all of 'em" she finished, grabbing the fifth box.

"Cool. Did'ja find any other useful things?" I asked as I dumped a bunch of cereal bar boxes in my basket. We had to get a lot of things that didn't need to be refrigerated so cereal's good for us on the run.

"Yea we can show you all when they come" she said as we walked to the frozen food section.

After getting some food and a cheap radio, we paid for the stuff and walked out. I took longer than I wanted to but it still hadn't been too long since I left the flock.

We decided that I should take three of the bags, and her one. She was built for speed (not strength) and that's all she could really take if she didn't want to be slowed down. So we walked into an area with a bunch of trees, I told her where to go and to look up if she got lost. _If _she could keep up with me.

Six minutes later- I blame the bags for the delay- I finally got to the cave. I look down to see if Star was there yet but I don't see her so I go for the cave. I slowed down and landed as Dylan moved away to give me room. I looked around as I dropped the bags. They were all there _feeuu. _

"Max! You're back!" Nudge squealed and came to hug me. She pulled away slightly but still hugging me, to look at my face "what took you so long? We were all getting worried!"

"Some _things _came up. But hey, I have a surprise! I'll be right back" I tell them all as I run back to the mouth of the cave and dive down. As I shoot down like a bullet I begin to see a speck on the ground. A few seconds later, as I gain speed, I see more details and see Star's outline.

I turn a little so I'm not falling head-first and extend my wings slightly. I was falling so fast that that it would have hurt if I hadn't turned. As I slow down I start to see that Star is sitting on a rock and she looks bored. She hears me and looks up right as I land a few feet away.

"What took you so long? I was waiting for like two minutes out here!"

"Calm down it's not that long and I was putting the bags up" I say gesturing up to the cave. "Ok put the bag in your lap so it doesn't hit me while I take us up" I tell her while she walks to me.

I grab her up bridal-style and she puts the bag on her lap- clutching it with one hand. While her other hand is pulling pretty much all my hair out. "I've never done this before…" she tells me as I'm about to jump up.

"Just hang on" I tell her feeling bad. I always forgot that most people never fly like us and it can be scary for them. I take my wings out, squat, and jump. While I flap my wings I can hear Star's breath catch.

When we're half way up she looks down and says "you know what? This is actually kinda cool!"

I just smile and look up. A few seconds later we get to the cave and everyone starts going crazy. Nudge starts freaking out, Dylan smiles, Gazzy yells "are the others here!" and Iggy starts screaming "Who is that!"

"That's Star, I think" Dylan tells him.

I put Star down and she says "yea, it's Star" she says patting her hair a little and then putting her bag by the others.

"Okay guys, Star says that the others won't be here till tonight. So I thought we could, like I said before I left, do something fun" they all cheered. I walked to one of the bags and pulled out the radio and turned it on "let's fly!"

The rest of that afternoon went by way too quickly for us. We all flew around trying out new tricks and a few hawks actually came around and flew with us. I taught Dylan a few things he didn't already know. Iggy went all around with Gazzy trying to look at all of the terrain and probably build a few bombs. Nudge played with a few hawks. And Star stuffed her face in the cave.

I noticed that it was getting dark so I headed in the cave. I figured the others could stay out for a while longer while I made a fire, so I didn't call them yet.

Dylan had been with Nudge for the past two minutes, but once he saw me he flew to me. "Hey, what are you doing?" he asks me.

"Gonna get some sticks for a fire" I say looking around the cave for any sticks. No luck, not even an old nest… "Wanna help?" I ask as I head to the entrance again.

"Yea sure!" he says and hurries to my side. I look back at Star, she was looking at us with her eyebrow raised and about to put a chip in her mouth, "we'll be right back ok? We'll just get some sticks."

"Uhu… Ok you two…" she said with a suspicious look on her face. Well ok?

I tucked in my wings in more and looked over at Dylan "hey when you dive, don't wait too long to spread your wings out ok? Just in case…" he smiles and nods and we both dive down at the same time. We were maybe one hundred meters from the ground so I spread my wings and looked over to make sure Dylan did the same. He did so I let out a thankful breath. We landed and he had to run a few feet to keep from falling. He was almost perfect now; he just needed to work on his landings…

"Ok so sticks…" he said as he looked around. "I don't see any sticks Max…" he says looking back at me.

"I think there were a few trees on top of this mountain" I tell him. He nods and we fly up.

When we get there we actually find a bunch of sticks. "So" he says while picking up some sticks. "Christmas is coming up…" he tells me, looking up.

"Oh yea, it is" I say, having completely forgotten.

"Mhm. So if someone, let's say Nudge, wanted to give you something… What would you want?" he asks, smiling innocently.

"Dylan you should tell '_Nudge_' that I already have everything that I need, and all I really care about is having everyone safe. So I don't really want anything" I say smiling and adjusting the sticks in my arms. "I think we have enough, let's go back."

We fly back and drop the sticks in the middle of the cave, a little closer to the entrance. I start the fire (don't ask how. It's just a trick we learned on the run) and we all gathered around it. It had gotten dark out and a pretty chilly. I could already tell that it was going to be cold tonight. I got up from the fire and walked to the grocery bags "anyone who wants s'mores, get a stick" I tell them as I take out some s'more supplies.

A few minutes later we were all roasting marshmallows over our fire as Gazzy was trying to tell a ghost story, even adding special sound effects that he had learned to do.

"…She opened the door and then _'AAAHHHHHH!'" _he screamed one of those 'girl getting killed' kind of screams from horror movies which made an unsuspecting Nudge jump and scream and everyone laugh at her reaction.

As I laughed I accidently made my marshmallow fall into the flames "no!" I squealed, which just made everyone laugh even more.

"Here Max" Dylan said kindly as he took his golden marshmallow off his stick.

"Oh, thanks Dylan" I say.

He was sitting beside me and he holds it in front of me, to feed me it, which made Nudge go "awww" and Gazzy fake gag. Iggy laughed at Gazzy and Star looked at us funny again. I've never really been fed anything so I looked at him hesitantly but he just smiled and held it out further. I thought it was kinda sweet so I went ahead and quickly seized it with my mouth.

"Fang!" Nudge screamed excitedly getting up and running to the cave entrance.

I looked up, and sure enough there he was! "Fang!" I say as I get up as quick as lightning. Then I realize what I just did and mentally kick myself in the butt. I'm so stupid! I'm supposed to be mad at him.

"Su- oof" Fang says as Nudge run into him, engulfing him in a hug. He had been looking at me and Dylan by the fire with a pained expression, but now he looked down at Nudge.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N<strong>** Sorry that this one took so long guys, I hope you don't hate me. I had finals all this week and I didn't post last week since I was so busy. But since I'm on winter break I'll try to update more.**

**Love yall, thanks for sticking with me:)**

**~L**


	7. Boys Will Be Boys

**A.N:**** This was the fastest update ever:) I got inspired! **

**Thank you ****dopeycookiemonster for reviewing so much, this is for you but sorry they're no FAX yet. I promise next chapter for sure!**

* * *

><p><strong>Boys Will Be Boys<strong>

"Fang, we all missed you so much! How've you been? Where's your gang? So much stuff's happened to us, especially in the past week! Has anything exciting happened to you all?" She asks as the rest of us come closer.

"Umm, yea good" Fang said smiling at her "but before we can all catch up, could the flock help me bring everyone up?"

"Yea ok" I say "come on guys." We all fly down- except for Star and Gazzy- and find the rest of Fang's gang waiting. Fang took Ratchet, Dylan took Holden, and I took Kate. Nudge and Iggy took their two bags, and Maya just flew up alone with another bag.

Maya looked different from last time. She had dyed her hair- this time a dark red color. It actually looked pretty and you could instantly tell us apart now, not have to look for that pink stripe in her hair.

Holden was a little bigger than before- had more muscle on him and grew a few inches. But he was still quiet and just stood by Fang while he talked to us about something that I tuned out of. I think he was answering Nudges questions about his day or something.

I'm going to take a guess here and say that Ratchet and Kate and together now. I say that because as soon as we put everyone down, Ratchet headed to where Kate was and they looked at each other in such a way that was cute, yet made me want to hurl.

Kate and Ratchet then went over to talk to Star. As Star told them something, they all looked back at me, which kind of angered me. It was enough that Star had been giving me weird looks, but if every one of Fangs people were going to do it… I was about to go over there and ask what their problem was once and for all; but just as I took a step, Nudge got in front of me "Fang want to show all of us some stuff they found in some lab" she says excitedly as everyone followed Fang to the middle of the cave where all the suitcases and everything else was.

I decided to just let the Star thing go and see what Fang brought.

He showed us a bunch of things like night-vision glasses, some light-weight body molding stuff that was supposed to be bullet-proof, Star's energy pills (which he then threw at her and she caught skillfully), and some other things he said we could all share.

"Ok so the reason that we're here Max-" he finally said, now actually speaking directly to me "-is that we need the flock's help. We think that if we just join forces with each other, just for a little while, that both groups would benefit and get through our missions quicker."

"Um…" I said as I looked around at my flock. They all looked a little surprised since I'd forgotten to tell them _why_ Fang had come. "I think it'd be fine for a little while. Is it ok with you guys?" I ask them.

They all nod cautiously but surely. "I think it would be awesome!" Nudge screams.

"As long as they don't get in the way, it's fine with me" adds Iggy.

Gazzy nods and Dylan stands there awkwardly and says "yea, ok, sure."

"Well I guess it's a yes" I say to Fang.

I looked out the cave seeing it was getting dark, and then felt my pocket- It was empty. I looked around the floor and walked around to the grocery bags. I opened them all and looked in but with no luck. I found nothing. I straighten back up, "damn" I say under my breath.

Dylan comes up beside me and asks "what's wrong Max?"

"I think I dropped my phone, but I don't know where" I tell him while I feel my back pocket, in case I put it there.

"Did you have it before you went to the store?" He asks, looking around too.

"Yea, I'm sure I had it before I left. Maybe I dropped it outside." I walk out to the cave entrance to look down. Nudge had joined us now. It was useless though, it was almost pitch black out and the fire light made it even harder to see out. And plus I knew I wouldn't be able to see a tiny cell phone from this far away. "This is useless, I guess I just need to get a new cell phone…" I look back at where Fang was "hey could we use those night-vision-"

"Found it!" Dylan informs us pointing down. He swoops down and I go over to the edge to watch. He lands a few moments later and bends down to pick something up. Then he jumps up and comes back to us.

When he lands he makes some of the sand on the floor disperse. He pulls his wings in and walks to me holding my phone out. "Thanks Dylan!" I say smiling and grabbing it.

"No problem" he says smiling.

Nudge looks surprised and looks back out, then at Dylan "how- wha- huh?" she asks dumbfounded.

"He has better night-vision than us, like Iggy did" I say as I try to turn my phone on, to see if it survived the impact.

"I think that's actually coming back too!" Iggy said happily.

"Cool!" I say excitedly, smiling up at him.

"Iggy's sight is back?" Fang asks confused.

"Yea- well kind of" Iggy says, "I mean I can tell what color and shape things are, and their outline. But I can't see too much detail."

"But it's getting better!" Nudge adds happily.

"So is your phone alive?" Gazzy asks enthusiastically.

"I actually think it broke from the fall" I say sadly.

"Yes!" he exclaims happily.

"Why are you so happy about my phone's death?" I ask suspiciously putting one hand on my waist while the other holds my phone.

"Oh well I'm sorry that you don't have a phone anymore, but I can use the parts that didn't get destroyed!" he says smiling up at me holding his hands out.

I sigh, "fine, here" I say putting my cracked phone in his waiting hands.

He cheers and goes off to where his bag was, grabbing Iggy's sleeve on the way there.

"What time is it" I asked, remembering why I'd wanted to get my phone in the first place.

Fang takes his phone out along with Dylan and they both say "twelve thirty" at the same time, then give each other dirty looks.

"Ok, thanks guys…" I say walking over to our bags. "Come on Nudge I think we should all turn in now." She followed me quickly and grabbed her bag as I say "we can use the bags as pillows" she nodded and went to the back left corner or the cave. I walk over to Gazzy and Iggy who were taking my phone apart. "You all too, go to bed, you can work on that some other time."

"Ok Max" Gazzy says surprising me. I would usually have to drag him to bed against his will. "Come on Iggy" he says yawning.

He gets up, grabs his bag, and walks over to where Nudge was. Iggy followed behind after grabbing his own bag. However, he hadn't seen that the ceiling was slightly lower there. "Iggy-" I say trying to stop him but he just looked over at me without stopping and hit his head "ough" he grumbles clutching his head quickly.

"Iggy are you ok?" I ask walking over to him.

"Yea I'm fine" he saying rubbing his head. "My hand's red…" he informs me "is it bleeding?" he asks as he puts his hand down to look at it.

"Kneel down for me Igg, you're too tall" I say as I try to look at his head. He does and I move his hair out of the way as I examine his scalp. "Oh yea, it's bleeding. Kinda bad too" I add as I look up at the pointy rocks above our heads. "Hey does anyone have some cloth or something?" I ask as I grab Iggy's arm and take him with me to the middle of the cave, where all the grocery bags were.

"You can use one of my socks!" Nudge calls loudly from the corner.

"Eww" Iggy says, holding his head.

"Thanks Nudge" I say as she hands me a pair of sock and then sits by us to see if she could do anything.

I grab a bottle of water from one of the bags and put some on a sock "turn around" I tell Iggy. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor and I was on my knees as I dabbed his head. But the blood just kept coming.

"Head wounds bleed a lot" he informs me.

"Great" I say "hey Dylan could you try your spit thing on Iggy's head?" I ask.

"Eww!" Iggy says, louder this time.

"Sure?" Dylan says a little unsure "but I told you already Max, it only works on me" he says as he sits by Iggy and takes the other- non-bloody- sock.

"But it worked on me at the hospital, maybe it'll work on Iggy."

"What? When did you go to the hospital? What happened?" Fang asks worriedly as he comes over to us with Holden.

"She went to the hospital when she got shot three times. One in her wing, one in her leg, and one in her stomach. Ohemgee! We were all so scared and sad when we found out she was pregnant and lost the bab-!" Nudge says quickly as I stare and then clasp my hand on her mouth.

"You were what!" Fang asks shocked and a little angered.

Dylan chuckles to himself as he takes him thumb off of Iggy's head, which was still bleeding, and frowns looking at his cut.

I don't know if it was just me but just then I could have sworn I saw some fog or smoke on the ground. It was very faint though so I wasn't sure.

"When did you- how did- who- You!" Fang says giving Dylan a look that made the whole cave got colder.

Dylan gets up and wipes his thumb on his jeans "yea it was mine" he says smiling.

_Oh shit… _I think as I grab the sock that was least bloody and tell Iggy to hold it there for a while.

Fang shoves Dylan back some as he says "how could you do that dude! You know how I feel about her!"

"Whatever, you had your chance! And what'd you do? You left her! Twice!" he yells as he shoves Fang back.

Fang's people had come over now and were just looking on, not knowing what to do. Gazzy had sat up and looked scared. Iggy was holding his head and stood up, walking back over to where Gazzy was. Nudge had gotten up with me and was standing behind me, she too looking scared.

"You just left her like she's nothing! Do you even care how sad she was, and is; because of you! We've already gone through this; I'm way better for her than you!" He says walking towards Fang slowly which was taking them both closer to the edge of the cliff. Fang stepped back a little, not noticing how close he was to the edge, and lost his footing a little; which sent some loose rocks tumbling down.

"I had my reasons for doing that and you know it! I didn't mean to hurt her. I felt horrible being away from her too but it was the only way" he says looking down at the floor, but then up again. He started to walk forward towards Dylan and tried to look taller. "But it doesn't mean I don't care about her! In fact I love her!" that made my breath catch in my throat and I gulped. "I would do anything for her and it killed me to have to leave. It killed me to have to leave her and my family with you! But I had to do it, for her. And plus she doesn't love you; even if she almost had your kid! She was probably forced to do that! She'll never love you!"

* * *

><p><strong>Third person point of view<strong>

This really angered Dylan; his cheeks flushed with anger and his eyes filled with rage. He charged forward and rammed Fang off the edge of the cliff. Dylan took his wings out, diving down after him.

Everyone else gasped and moved closer to the edge. They saw Fang coming back up, his black wings would be almost invisible if it weren't for the moon and stars shining above.

Dylan shot to him, hitting his shoulder against Fang's. This made Fang spin to the side, and fall a few feet. This, though quite painful, didn't cause much damage to Fang and only managed to piss him off. Fang hadn't wanted to fight, but now it was on!

Fang now completed the turn he was rammed into, and charged to Dylan. He took his fist out in front of him and aimed it right for Dylan's face.

It was too late for Dylan to dodge it now. But he managed to move his face up so it wouldn't hit him in the eye.

Fang's punch hit Dylan's jaw so hard that the others heard a loud '_pop',_ as Dylan's jaw came out of socket.

Dylan's face showed some pain but he didn't care about his jaw right now; he grabbed Fangs arm and twisted it behind his head.

The others heard another nasty, but slightly less audible, '_pop_' as Fangs shoulder came out of socket.

Fang's face contorted with pain for a second and then he kicked himself powerfully away from Dylan.

They looked at each other furiously for a while and then charged again.

This time however, Max screamed "STOP!" and used her super speed to get between them right as they were about to slam into each other.

Max held her arms out to stop them, knowing all too well it was a useless gesture and that she was surely going to get her arms broken. But she had to do something! She closed her eyes and waited for the pain…

* * *

><p><strong>Dylan<strong>

'_No Max!' _ I thought as I shot to Fang. His eyes were the widest I'd ever seen them, like he was about to get a leg cut off or something, as he saw Max.

We all knew it was too late to stop or to change directions. But I had to try something. I put my arms out as fast as I could and managed to grab Fangs shoulders. I noticed that Fang had put his legs out too. My elbows bent some from the impact and we crushed Max slightly but she'd live. Thank God.

* * *

><p><strong>Fang<strong>

'_Shit!'_ I think as I extend my legs and separate them so they'd go around Max and hit Dylan's knees, and lessen the blow.

Hitting him gave me a jolt but at least we didn't crush Max too bad. He had put his arms out, his hands on my shoulders, to try to save Max like me and now we both noticed we had smashed Max's wings.

Her arms were bent a little at the elbow, her left hand on my chest, and I guess her right on Dylan's. Her head was down and it looked like she might be crying. Some of her feathers had fallen and her wings were squished between my right leg and Dylan's left arm "please, stop" she whispered.

Dylan backed up slowly and I grabbed Max around the waist with one arm as she fell a little. Her wings moved uselessly which only made her tense up in pain. Her hair was in her eyes and Dylan said "give her to me." I knew I couldn't carry her with one arm so I quickly gave her over, forgetting that we had just been fighting a few seconds ago.

He sped over to the bright cave that blinded me when I saw it. I hadn't realized we had been fighting in nearly pitch black. And I raced a few meters behind Dylan.

I saw that everyone was watching quietly. Star didn't look as surprised as the others. Ratchet was wide eyed and holding Kate's shoulders, who had her hands covering her mouth in horror and was wide eyed also. Holden stood close to the edge and looked surprised. Maya looked like she couldn't believe what had happened but then ran over to Iggy screaming something at him. Iggy looked confused and scrambled around, throwing his bloody sock on the ground. Nudge was crying violently. And Gazzy looked terrified but was quickly telling Iggy what had happened.

When Dylan landed he put Max down but helped her stay sitting up so her wings didn't get hurt again.

I kneeled on her other side mentally kicking myself in the ass for this.

Everyone gathered around as Iggy finally started screaming orders for things.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N: <strong>**Ok Idk what happened to my beta but I think I might need a new one, so sorry for any mistakes. Please review for a fast update like this one!**

**Love yall**

**~L**


	8. Catching Up'

**A.N:**** Warning this will have a slight lemon… not much though so don't worry. **

**I took the polls down after one day. I only got one vote for one (I'll censor it) and zero for the second one so I hope I don't offend anyone or anything with this chapter... I mean it's not even that bad. **

**Also I don't know why but I randomly got like 500 hits this week which made me extremely happy:) So instead of waiting for the polls to be answered I just decided to update now.**

**Dopeycookiemonster-**** Yea she will, in this chapter actually. When they finally 'catch up' as Dylan put it. Thank you so much for reviewing by the way. It's the only reason I keep wanting to update.**

**RachiePoo23-**** Thank you kind stranger:)**

* * *

><p>'<strong>Catching up'<strong>

I woke up the next morning shivering and with a bunch of arms on me. I remembered what went on the night before and how I'd broken my wings.

I'd fallen asleep a little after Iggy had patched me up with a few strong sticks and a bunch of bandages. I remember that Fang and Dylan had given each other these weird looks and then I don't know what happened after that since I fell asleep.

What I _do_ remember very distinctly is the pain. I remember that at the last second they had managed to not completely crush me when I flew in-between them, but they _had _crushed my wings.

I stood up carefully, trying to not wake Nudge and Gazzy who had made a kind of blanket over my torso with their arms. Aww they're so cute, but I felt bad because I'm supposed to be the one to keep them warm. Not the other way around. I also saw that Iggy was beside Gazzy. He had his wing out to cover all of us, except for a little bit of Nudge who was on the other side.

I lifted Iggy's gigantic tan wing a little, so I could get out, and then put it back down so it covered everyone. I'm sure that it woke him up, but he didn't even flinch.

I then looked around the cave. Fangs gang was off in the right, back corner. My flock was in the left, back corner. Dylan was sprawled out on the floor, far from everyone else, on one side (closer to the flock) of the cave entrance. And Fang was curved slightly on the opposite side of the entrance (closer to his gang.)

I'm guessing they were all fast asleep (except for maybe Iggy) and I felt the urge to go fly for a bit.

And I would have too, if it weren't for two things. One- I didn't want them to wake up and worry, and two- I _couldn't_…

I sat down cross-legged in front of my sleeping flock. I looked out to the entrance and saw that random fog- or whatever it was. This time I got a little scared. What if it wasn't my imagination? A few moments later though, as I tried to really look at it, I couldn't find it anymore. It was as if it had never been there at all. I just decided to ignore it once again, I mean after all it _was_ morning so maybe it'd been morning fog…

I turned around with half of my body and tried to look at my wings. There wasn't much to see, just some random, ugly, bald spots in my light brown-speckled wings and a bunch of neatly places bandages. I could feel the sticks, but I couldn't see them so I straightened back up and looked forward. What I saw when I turned scared the bejeebers out of me, only for a second though…

Fang was lying on his stomach, arms under his chin, staring right at me with those dark mysterious eyes of his.

We sat there, just looking at each other for what seemed like forever. He looked sad, his eyes showed his regret, confusion and longing. Mine probably showed some of those things too.

Suddenly he got up and stood there. I got the feeling he wanted me to come with him. So I looked back and seeing that everyone was asleep, I got up too and walked to him.

I stood in front of him and looked out, then at him. I was trying to ask how this would work, you know since I couldn't fly…

He understood me and then slowly put his arms out, as if wanting to carry me. He looked unsure, and like he would understand if I would just turn away now.

I didn't though. I walked to him and he lowered his left arm. He quickly grabbed ahold of me and carried me bridal-style to the edge of the cave.

I squirmed a bit to fix my wings. He loosened his grip a little until I was comfortable, while looking down at me. I couldn't read his expression at the moment, but he looked like he was in deep thought.

When I stopped moving and was comfortable he tightened his grip and took his wings out. He looked down at me one more time to make sure I hadn't gotten cold feet. Seeing I hadn't, he proceeded to do this squat thing we do when we want to take off silently. He jumped up without a sound and started flapping.

We flew (he flew) for about ten minutes, in silence until we saw another cave. It was noticeably smaller than ours but would still fit us all if we were to ever need it. It also had a pretty big ledge in front of it that held a bunch of trees and small desert shrubs, which made it hard to see inside the cave.

He landed carefully so he wouldn't move me too much and then sat me down.

We stood there for a moment and then I sat down in the middle of the cave, with him quickly doing the same "ok listen Max, I have no idea what came over me last night-" he starts, but I cut him off.

"Stop right there, it wasn't _just_ your fault. Both of you just got out of hand. I'm not saying it was ok, because there's no way in _hell_ it was… You all scared everyone; you really scared the kids Fang! Nudge was crying." I took a breath "I don't even get it. Last time we were all together, it was as if you were kind of friends…"

"Yea, I don't know what came over me. I felt like I _wanted _to fight him, like it was the most important thing in the world that I beat him… We could have hurt you… I'm so sorry Max" he says looking down.

I was already a little mad at him and this only added to that- but suddenly I didn't care anymore…

"By the way… Dylan wasn't telling the whole truth" I say making him look up with a confused look. I clear my throat "the baby… It _was_ his-" his eyes made me stop for a second. They looked lethal, like he wanted to kill someone (Dylan) _again_. "-b-but it's not what you think" I say raising my hands "Dr. Gunther put it in me. Dylan and I never _did_ anything…"

"Are you still… a virgin?" he asks cautiously. I nod and smile at him.

I moved closer to him and his eyes widened in surprise, but then his pupils looked like they got dilated and his expression softened. I don't know why, but I got this huge urge to kiss him… among other things… right then and there.

I think he did too because he got closer too "sorry" he says softy when his lips are only centimeters away from mine.

"For what?" I ask quietly against his lips.

"Everything… especially leaving you" he says and kisses me.

* * *

><p><strong>Dr.G (I bet you're wondering what he's been up to)<strong>

_**(That morning, after Max woke up…)**_

"I can't believe you all were stupid enough to mix those things up!" he shouts at the only too scientists he had left. Jeb had made it his life goal to mess up his plans, and Fang had messed everything up too; after he blew up the doctor's last lab. Now the only things he had left were in this facility and Max knew where it was, so he'd have to prepare to leave soon.

"We're sorry sir" one said as he ducked his head.

The other just shook his head and thought _'why do I work for this guy?'_

"If I want something done right I have to do it myself… when will I learn?" Dr. G mumbles to himself as he grabs a bottle of hormones.

The scientists had mixed the wrong hormones the night before and put in too much testosterone.

Instead of making Dylan and Max want to breed, they'd made Dylan and Fang want to kill each other.

This time Hans mixed them himself and would make his robot put it closer too Max. Since apparently the last batch hadn't affected her or else she would have probably killed someone by now.

_*But again it would get to Fang too…_

_**(Present monitoring on Max…)**_

"Ugh. No, this isn't supposed to happen!" Hans screamed at the blurry, black and white picture on his monitor.

"At least we know that gas worked…" the annoyed scientist says.

"Yes, I suppose. And I guess we don't really have much of a choice- seeing how short on time we are- to make this go exactly as planned. I just wish that Dylan was there. He's a more suitable mate than this primitive subject" the Doctor says shaking his head.

* * *

><p><strong>Max<strong>

I had taken the sticks out of my wings since they were already healed. They still hurt to move, but all of the little bones in my wings had set perfectly and I was able to fold them in.

After my wings were folded in my back, I couldn't feel a thing and was able to give my full attention to Fang once again.

He'd been staring at me with a pained look in his eyes but I just smiled at him and shrugged. It hadn't _really _been his fault and to be honest I really didn't care right now.

I started kissing him again and he soon forgot all about it. Our clothes were all over the place and Fang now rolled us over so he was on top.

He went into me slowly looking into my eyes the whole time to make sure I was ok.

I sucked in a breath when I felt the pain and he stopped cold so he didn't hurt me anymore.

A tear fell from my check and Fang whispered "I'm so sorry Max" with wide eyes as he wiped my check with his thumb.

"It's ok. It doesn't matter" I tell him.

I inhaled again and his scent only made me want him more. The pain quickly left and we went back to what we had been doing…

* * *

><p><strong>Dylan<strong>

Everyone was awake now and still keeping a safe distance from me. Max and Fang were still gone too.

I sat at the cave mouth, where I'd slept last night, and looked out. Even though they all either hated me or were scared me (whichever it was), I still needed to protect them for Max.

Max… she was probably out with Fang…

Fang… how much I'd hated him last night for no reason. I don't even get why though. I mean sure, we both tried to mostly avoid each other because of the whole competing over Max thing, but we were still pretty friendly when Max wasn't involved.

I hate him right now though since he has Max all to himself and I can't do anything about it. If I left Max would be mad I interrupted their catching up, and that I left the flock.

So I was stuck here having to listen to whispers about Fang, Max, and me.

Everyone had freaked out when they couldn't find Max and Fang but Iggy told us they needed to talk. So they all decided to wait a few hours until we went searching.

A few minutes later I looked out again and saw Max and Fang.

"I hear someone… two people coming" Ratchet says from the back of the cave, where everyone was. He had kept his glasses and headphones on but began to come to the cave's mouth when I spoke up for the first time today-

"It's Max and Fang" I say as I stand up and everyone looks out, seeing nothing.

A few moments later Ratchet says "oh I see them now." They were a few miles away now and everyone got up to make sure it was them.

"I don't see a thing" Gazzy says.

"Me either" Iggy says sarcastically.

"Shut up Iggy" Nudge says swatting him in the arm.

I felt Star and Maya- who were the closest ones to me- get aggravated, but just ignored them.

"I see two dots now, is that them?" Kate says pointing.

"Yup" Ratchet says and goes to stand by her again.

A little while later we all backed up some to make room for their landing. They flew in, tucked their wings in at the same time in midair, and dropped lightly a foot to the ground.

"Thank God Iggy was right" Nudge breaths. I then noticed she'd been really worried. My bad… I could have fixed that…

Max came up to me and Fang went to talk to his gang. I looked down at her when she stopped walking and said "I'm sorry Max" I looked at the ground in regret "I don't know why I did that."

* * *

><p><strong>Max<strong>

I could tell he really _was_ sorry, like Fang was… Fang…

Snap out of it! Ugh… why'd we do that? I knew he had wanted to wait, and I had too. We're way too young to have to deal with the consequences this might bring.

Shit… what if I had…

No! That wouldn't be possible… It was only my first time and who knows if we even did it right-

"Max? Are you ok?" Dylan asked twisting down a little to see my face. I'd been staring at the ground for a while without even knowing it.

I saw that Fang turned around; looking worried when Dylan asked that. "Oh yea I'm fine" I tell him, and Fang turns to his guys.

I see some faint fog again out of the corner of my eye and turn to look at it. But when I look- it's not there anymore.

I must really be losing my mind now…

Wanting to go flying again for no reason, I scanned around. Seeing that Gazzy and Iggy had gone back to taking my phone apart, Nudge was looking in all the grocery bags for food or something, and all of Fang's group was with Fang talking; I thought it'd be safe to go.

"Hey lets go talk somewhere else. I want to go fly, I need to stretch my wings" I see that his eyes got dilated as he nods. His beautiful turquoise eyes got dominated by black.

"Ok" he says with the easy smile he always has and takes out his wings. They were huge and looked bigger right now in this cave. They had a color close to mine but looked thicker. They were built more for strength, not speed like mine were.

As we take off I see that Fang almost jumped after us until Iggy told him to stay- that Dylan and I should talk alone. Fang looked unsure but didn't come after us.

We flew for a while and all I could think was _dang this place is big_.

Then another wave of whatever hit me earlier hit me again. But this time I wanted Dylan not Fang.

Dylan sensed it and I could tell he felt the same. I didn't really question what was going on, just went with it. We landed in a small clump of trees. He hit the ground first, not so gracefully, and I landed seconds later. I forgot to slow down before landing so I ran into him. Since he wasn't expecting it, I managed to knock him to the ground and fell on him.

He looked at me as I lay on top of him until I started kissing him, then he closed his eyes.

After that a part of me took over like before- with Fang, and I couldn't think straight. Everything just _was_…

* * *

><p><strong>A.N.<strong>**Please review you guys! I know you're out there! And I **_**will**_** find you!**

**Love yall**

**~L**


	9. Early Christmas Gift

**Ahhh! I exploded with happiness when I saw I got three reviews:D Merry Christmas you guys! This chapter is my gift to you ^-^ **

**Thank you my ever faithful ****dopeycookiemonster**** (that didn't sound insane at all), sorry I took it off before you could vote. I figured that one voter was you hahah. Well I'll just put up another one and you can vote on it:)**

**Thank you ****Bacon is Love**** you gave me warm fuzzies!**

**And ****NOMLYANNO**** you gave kind of a mixed signal in the review. You don't like both Mylan and****Fax? But I got what you meant haha, and why does everyone hate Dylan so much?**

* * *

><p><strong>Early Christmas Gift<strong>

After what happened yesterday I wanted to crawl under a rock and just stay there forever. I'm such a whore!

"Max, you've been there all day, don't you think it's time to get up? I mean I'm all for staying in bed all day and all but you're Max. You're usually the one who's up before all of us and screaming at us to get up-" she bent down to look at my face now with concern in her eyes "Max are you ok? Are you sick again?"

That made everyone in the flock shut up, and look up from what they were doing. Dylan's eyes bugged out and Iggy opened his mouth to say something but then closed it "no! I'm fine, I just- I'm just hungry. Yea from flying so much yesterday" I cringe at the words that just left my mouth but I doubt anyone noticed so I get up quickly and sit by the fire they had made. I sat as far away from Dylan and Fang as I could and ate a few hotdogs.

I was in deep thought the whole time and absent mindedly nibbling on some hotdog bread I had left until I heard Fang say "so what do you think Max?"

I sit up and look around "huh?"

"What do you think- about taking the flock to my hide-out tomorrow, while we work out a plan against the doomsday group?" He says with a confused look.

"Uh yea, I think that's fine. Did you say tomorrow?" I ask putting the rest of the bun in my mouth.

"Yea tomorrow. You know so everyone can pack and everything today" he tells me.

Everyone was either staring at me or glancing at me from time to time, which made me uncomfortable so I got up. "Well I'm just going to pack now."

"I'll come with you" Nudge calls as she stuffs some goldfish in her mouth **[A.N- Goldfish as in the baked cheese snacks, not the pet fish with scales… just FYI] **and runs to me.

We sit by our stuff for a while as we take wrappers and random stuff we don't need out of our packs, and put some cereal bars, and anything we had out in when she whispers-

"Ok Max you and I both know, that I know, that something's up with you. So just tell me already, maybe I can help. Does it have to do with guy trouble? Cuz I'm somewhat of an expert on guys" she tells me while pealing an extra cereal bar's wrapper.

"I'd actually rather not talk about it Nudge. And anyways, how are you an 'expert' on guys?" I ask suspiciously, putting air quotes on the word expert.

"Oh you know, TV, Magazines, and having to live with them" she says with a shrug, after swallowing.

"Haha. Ok Nudge, whatever you say" I tell her as I zip up my bag.

"But really Max. If you ever need to talk about anything, I'll always be here ok?" she whispers.

I look around and see that no one is staring anymore. So I look back at Nudge and say "well actually yea, I want to tell you something. It's killing me, but I don't want anyone to eavesdrop" I say pointing back with my thumb.

"We're going to explore guys! Be back soon!" she says shooting up and pulling me up by my hand.

"Can I go too Max!" Gazzy asks.

"I need to talk to Max about some girl stuff too Gazzy" Nudge says before I can react.

Gazzy makes a disgusted face and says "never mind" as he sits back down.

Nudge and I decide to just fly down to the ground to talk, and right as we land she immediately asks "ok, so what is it? Why've you been acting so weird?"

I sit down and lean against the rocks and she joins me. I put my knees up, my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands "I'm such a whore Nudge."

Nudge's hand comes on my back and she says "Max, don't say that! You are so not! Don't _ever_ say that again-"

"But I am Nudge! I don't want to tell you what I did. You'll be ashamed of me…"

"Max you already told me all of this so I know you want to tell me what you did, to at least get it off your chest" she tells me matter-of-factly. "Come on it was probably not even _that _bad_. _What'd you do? Sleep with someone? I mean that's ok… I bet in the future we're all gonna do it. It was just a matter of time, you just happened to do that sooner." Then she whispers "so who was it? Fang? Dylan?"

I turn my head to look at her. Poor little twelve year old Nudge… Why am I bugging her with this? I should tell this to someone like my mom not innocent little Nudge. I look back down and mumble "both".

"OMG MAX!" she shrieks.

I'll kick myself in the butt for telling her that now. Why am I so stupid! "See I am a whore!" I yell

"No Max!" she says quickly "they're both awesome guys and I know how much you care about them both… and… and…"

Unbelievable, Nudge was speech-less-

I jumped up and ran a few feet away from her to a bush.

I scared Nudge a little while I got up, since she was in deep thought on what to say.

After I lost my breakfast/lunch-thing I looked at Nudge. She stared back, then at the bush.

Her eyes went wide as we both mouthed 'shit'.

… (a while later. As they fly up slowly)…

"Maybe I'm really just sick…" I whisper.

"Maybe…" she says.

'_Max'_

"Voice!"

Nudge grabs my arm and flies us to a ledge far away from our cave. I give her a confused look and she says "the voice might have something worth knowing" she shrugs "and I don't think the others should hear just yet."

"Ok voice what do you want?"I ask.

'_Last time you almost died because you didn't know this'_

"Ok. Know what voice?"

'_Think Max'_

"Well that was a waste of time. The voice just said that last time I almost died because I didn't know this." I tell Nudge after I feel the voice leave me.

"That sure narrows it down to almost our whole lives…" she says.

'_Max think back to the last time you almost died.'_

"Last time I almost died? When was that Nudge?"

She thinks for a moment "like last week right?" she finally says.

'_is that what you mean voice?'_

'_Yes Max. Now _why_ did you almost die?' _I feel that the voice leaves my head after it says that.

"Um… I don't understand" I say looking at Nudge.

"What did it say?"

"It asked _why_ I almost died that time"

"Um maybe because you got shot three times!" she says like it was the most obvious thing in the world (because it was).

But it didn't make sense. "So what am I supposed to know? That I'll get shot at again?"

We stand there thinking for a few minutes until Nudge says "Ugh this is too confusing…" and rubs her temples.

"I guess we should go now" I say slowly. "Hey Nudge let's not tell anyone about this yet ok?"

"Tell the others what?" she asks me.

"That I'm sick. We could tell Iggy or someone what the voice said to see if they can help us figure out what it meant." She nods and we take off for the cave.

* * *

><p><strong>(Secret Branch of Itex- AKA Voice)<strong>

"Jake she conceived again, we have to tell her" Livy says from her computer.

Jake's eyes widen "again? Man will Hans ever give them a break?"

"This time it was actually a natural conception…" Livy whispers.

"Oh… I know we're not supposed to get involved but I thought we all agreed that we would warn her if she ever… got involved with… that sort of action…" he says slowly.

"It was sort of unexpected Jake. And it was actually one of our days off yesterday remember?" Gavin points out.

"Oh yea. Well we have to try to warn her this time ok? I don't want her to almost die again. We can't intervene that much though ok? So we can only lead her to it. We can tell her in two days if she doesn't get it by then."

"Alright this computer's ready for you Jake" says Chriss.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max)<strong>

When we get back to the cave Gazzy runs to us all excited. He goes up to me and asks "hey Max are we going to celebrate Christmas this year? Please, Fang says that his hide-out is super safe!"

"I don't know Gazzy. We really can't have a huge celebration while we're on the run. You know that right?" I say slowly. I really didn't want to crush his dreams but we had to be realistic.

"Yea I know" he says sadly. "But it can be just a small present exchange and day of relaxing" he says hopefully.

"Maybe Gazzy. We'll see if we have some time to spare ok? If we don't get hunted down again or anything."

He gives me a huge grin and hugs me "yey, thank you Max" and then runs to Iggy.

I turn to Nudge again "when's Christmas?" I whisper.

She shrugs "it's in six days" Fang says from a few feet away as he puts things in his bag.

"Oh, ok. Thanks" I say looking away from him quickly.

"Hey I think we need some more wood" Dylan says as he pokes it with a stick.

"I can get it" I say slowly. Dylan and Fang's eyes brighten up and they open their mouths up to say something, but I get an idea and quickly say "Iggy can you come help me?"

He looks up from talking to Gazzy with a confused expression "yea sure Max" and gets up.

…

As we pick up some sticks I look around and knowing that no one can hear us but wanting to be careful I whisper "Iggy some here."

"What Max?" he whispers ask coming closer quickly.

I sit on the ground and put the sticks beside me "ok earlier when Nudge and I were out I heard the voice" I say quickly.

"What did it say?" he asks eagerly.

"Well that's what I need you for. Nudge and I couldn't figure out what it meant" I frown. "Ok it said that 'last time I almost died because I didn't know this', we decided that the last time I died it was the hospital thing last week. But then it asked _why_ I had almost died. It was because of the three shots right?" I say quickly.

"Yea. Well technically, you almost died because of the blood –loss" he tells me.

"Oh yea" I say.

'_Why did you bleed so much Max?'_

"The voice just asked me _why _I bled so much…" I tell him confused. "Because I got shot three fricken times right?" I say aggravated.

"Right. So I'm not getting what we're supposed to get from this" he says and scratches his head. "Ok let's think. One shot was in your wing and that didn't really bleed too much. Then the leg and you bled a bunch from that because it hit an artery-"

"And then in the stomach. Yea, yea, yea, I got all that, I know where I was hit. So why does it matter?" I say annoyed now.

"You bled the most from that though Max!" he happily.

"Oh my gosh! I bled so much from that because I was carrying a baby! That's what the voice meant!" I put my hands on my mouth quickly.

"It's ok Max, they can't hear you. I'm sure of it. But what did the voice mean?" he says looking at me with his semi-blind eyes.

I put my hands down. I know I can't just not tell him. I think he should know since he helped me figure it out, and plus- Iggy's pretty reliable and won't tell anyone if I tell him not to. "Iggy, you have to swear you won't tell anyone ok?" he nods. "Ok, I'm sure that by 'information that I didn't have that caused me to almost die' was that I was pregnant" I tell him.

"I bet it is. I mean you didn't know that, and it made you almost die… AND OH MY GOD YOU'RE PREGNANT!" he says with wide eyes and gets up. Causing all the sticks on his lap to fall to the ground.

"Iggy don't tell anyone" I shriek at him still sitting.

"Ok Max for right now. But pretty soon they'll start to find out. And who knows how fast it'll develop. I mean we look a few years older than we really are so..." he drifts of. "Wait who's the dad?" he says looking back at me again.

"I uhh… I don't know…" I say looking down.

"Did that creep implant you with one again? I swear I'm going to find this as-"

"No Iggy. I don't think he did. I kind of slept with-"

"Fang? Dylan? I should have known what you meant when you wanted to fly so much yesterday" he says really fast.

"Geez Iggs. When'd you turn into Nudge?" I ask slowly.

"Sorry I mean you just told me something pretty big. So who's the dad?"

"Oh my god Iggy, you're gonna hate me or think I'm a whore or somthing" I say looking down.

"No I'm not Max. You're like my sister, I could never really hate you. It's not that bad that you slept with someone-"

"I slept with both of them Iggy!"

His face looks unmoved "not that bad…" he shrugs. "At least you know those guys" he says coming to sit by be and putting an arm around me. "Not like they were just some random hobos or something…" I snort "there's nothing you can do now so might as well forgive and forget."

"Easy for you to say. I'm the one who has to live with the consequence" I say and look at my stomach.

"Max, you know you won't be alone. Nudge will probably be thrilled, I'll gladly help out with my little niece/nephew, and the dad… Well when you find out who _that _is- they might be excited too if they really loved you. If they weren't just looking for a quick hook-up or anyth- ouch" he says rubbing his shoulder where I just hit him. "What, too soon?" he asks with a grin.

I give him a death glare. "I'm giving you a death glare Iggy." I tell him.

"Yea I know, I can see you."

"You can?" I ask shocked.

"Well kind of. I knew it was either that or you were about to sneeze" I chuckle "I can see faces now, kind of" he says looking at me.

"Oh my gosh Iggy you'll be able to see Ella soon!" I say as I gather my sticks up and he does the same.

"Yea" he says smiling.

"Let's go back now, before they send out a search party" he laughs. "Oh and remember- don't tell anyone."

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- I broke 1,000 hits! But only 300 visitors... Oh well I still l<strong>**ove all of you and I hope you have an awesome Christmas!**

**~L**


	10. Half 'The Secret's Out

**A.N- AriLivesnotDylan- I barely understood you but thank you and I will:) **

**Dopeycookiemonster- I'm really sorry to tell you this but your idea won't work for this story because of a huge detail that you all can't know of yet… BUT, I really like your idea haha. And I like drama too so I think I'd rather them throw punches and hate each other hahhah. **

**SPOILER: (**don't read this if you don't want to know**!) I actually like Fang BECAUSE he's all silent and stuff and don't worry Mylan haters. Because in this story Max will end up with Fang, even after all the stuff I make be in the way… and trust me… there will be a LOT more (well one huge thing).**

**MCH- will do:D**

**XXAustenGirlXx- Thank you so much! **

**Mary Kenson- I think it will go in this story because that vote is winning 3 to 1. Oh and, good to know- I'll put yay instead of yey now…**

* * *

><p><strong>Half 'the Secret's Out<strong>

I had somehow managed to get to Fang's hide-out without throwing up or doing anything out of the ordinary, which I was _extremely_ proud of might I add.

As soon as we landed though, my stomach churned in the most awful way possible. I ran straight into the woods nearby and left the flock (not so much Nudge and Iggy) a little frazzled. As soon as I knew no one could hear me I puked my guts out behind a bush.

A minute later, when I felt better, I got up and wiped my sweaty forehead. '_Ugh…'_ I thought. '_Voice, _please_ tell me this won't be a normal pregnancy. Please say this will be a heck of a lot quicker.'_

'_I wish I knew Max' _it answered a few seconds later.

I hadn't expected it to actually answer, but I won't complain.

* * *

><p><strong>(Nudge)<strong>

We had separated from Fang because of how we traveled and we'd been following them to a location that I'm not allowed to say. But when we finally got there it was a little sooner than Fang and his group because of all the forest. We could easily fly over it but Fang had to walk on foot for a while with his gang. But He'd told us where it was so we could see if we could find the door, and just check out the outside.

Right as we landed though, Max bolted for the trees. Dylan didn't think twice about following her so Iggy and I (who know why she'd ran) had to both hold him back and convince him it was just nature calling. After a few minutes we had managed to sit him down.

Iggy and Max had told me they'd figured out what the voice meant and that they were sure Max was prego. I was so excited and still am. I mean I'm going to be an aunt for Pete's sake! But they'd made me shut up like usual.

I don't even get_ why _Max wants to keep it a secret. I think it'd be safer for the baby if everyone know, so we could be careful. And plus the dad should know… Or the 'maybe' dad… She probably doesn't want Dylan and Fang to fight or something…

That's why! But I think telling them sooner would lessen the badness of it. So they won't be mad they didn't know sooner. We all know Max is going to eventually show and they'll all find out-

"Nudge could you go check on Max? See if she's ok- or needs something I mean" Iggy says lowly.

I nod and Dylan gets up and looks at Iggy "Iggy why are you nerves and scared? I thought you said she had to go… Why wouldn't she be ok?" Dylan says getting louder and louder and then looking at me.

"She is" I say quickly "she told me she had to go before she left… She must have forgotten to though. And you know Max… haha… she might have… tripped... over a…" not knowing what to say but knew I had to say something quick; I say the first thing that came to mind "stick?"

Iggy gives me a 'really?' look and Dylan tilts his head to the side confused "trip over a stick? Max is the most coordinated person I know-"

"Thanks Dylan, means a lot to me" Max says coming from behind some bushes.

"Max!" Iggy screams relived. Wow that boy had really been worried…

* * *

><p><strong>(Max)<strong>

"Nice to see you too Iggy. Has it really been… two minutes already, wow" I say looking at my invisible watch. "Where does the time go?" I exclaim sarcastically.

"Sorry we just thought you'd… tripped over a stick…" he says looking at Nudge.

"Um did I miss something?" I say looking around. "Never mind. Hey where's Gazzy?" I say noticing he wasn't in sight.

"Oh he's, um Dylan where'd he go?" Nudge says now looking around.

"Gazzy!" I scream getting really scared.

Gazzy then walks in from around the corner of the large boulder we'd landed in front of and says "calm down, I'm right here."

I run to him and hug him now feeling super sad that I'd almost lost him and start crying.

"Max calm down we hadn't even lost him. I knew where he was the whole time." Dylan says coming over to me and notices I was crying.

"Shit" I hear Iggy say.

"Oh you did? Gazzy you scared me! Dylan why didn't you tell me sooner!" I say angrily now.

Nudge and Iggy look at each other nervously as I realize I'm over exaggerating. "Sorry Max" Dylan says and I feel myself calm down.

"Thanks" I say and then add "sorry I over exaggerated."

Right then Fang came out of the woods with his group behind him. "Was that you screaming?" he asks me looking worried.

"Uh yea sorry. Misunderstanding though, so no biggie" I say.

"Ok? Well anyway, did you all find the door?" he asks.

"Well they didn't even look. But I couldn't find it" Gazzy says disappointed.

"What did you all do then?" Maya asks. I think that's the first time I heard her talk, isn't it? I don't know. Who cares?

"Max had to pee" Gazzy says nonchalantly.

I look at him and then at Nudge and Iggy. They nodded and I just figured I should go with it. Better that then to raise suspicion with the truth "yup, pee" I say nodding, my head, ignoring the fact that I probably looked and sounded insane.

Gazzy looked at me and then back at Fang "and then the rest of them just stayed here and talked to Dylan.

"Oh well ok do you all want to look for the door some more? Or do you believe me that this place is safe?" he says crossing his arms and leaning on the boulder.

"What do you guys want to do?" I ask looking back at my flock.

"I want to look for the door Max, please?" Gazzy begs coming up to me and looking up at my eyes.

"I do too!" Nudge squeals, which surprises me since she usually wouldn't want to go around a mossy forest and look for a hidden door she might not even find.

"Same here, I really want to see the look on people's faces when the blind guy finds the hidden door" Iggy says smiling.

"Hate to break it to ya Igs," I say coming up to him "but I don't think you're considered blind to the world anymore."

He looks down at me and just stays quiet, frowning.

I hear some people snicker and then turn back to Fang "ok, well I think we'll stay here for a while until we give up."

… **about ten minutes later**

I'd given up about two minutes into the search and just sat on a rock because my head hurt. Fang had joined me instantly since he was actually right behind me as I searched, and Dylan joined us a minute later looking tense about Fang being so close to me.

They just sat there awkwardly till now when I spoke up, affectively breaking them away from their glaring contest. "Guy's I'm really sorry about the other day" I say looking at the ground between them. They were both sitting on the ground in front of my rock about a foot away.

They both looked at me and were about to say something until they realized what I'd said. Both their faces went blank and they stared at me, then at themselves.

"You mean you… with both of us?" Dylan asked confused.

I nodded my head slowly still looking at the ground. When an awkward silence was firmly set up I snuck a peak at their faces to see what I was in for.

First at Fang who was looking at me. He was expressionless like usual, but I could see the corners of his mouth tilting ever so slightly downward. That usually meant he felt awkward and didn't know what to do. I could also see that his eyes were a tiny bit narrowed which meant he was mad. Anyone who saw him though might say I'm crazy and that he just looked bored, but I knew him, I knew his every expression.

Then I looked a little over to Dylan. He looked a little hurt before he turned to Fang and just looked straight up pissed. "You" he said simply.

Fang was still looking at me and didn't even flinch when Dylan said that. Even though he knew quite well he was talking to him. He stared into my eyes and as I looked in his I saw how much my words had hurt him. "I didn't mean to" I say getting a teary eyed.

He just kept looking at me and now actually let the pain show on his face. "Fang I'm talking to you" Dylan says reminding us he was there.

I sniffled trying to keep my nose from being runny. Dylan got up now and looked down at Fang "How could you sleep with her? You probably forced her to too!" he bellows angrily.

Fang gets up now and looks away from my eyes to Dylan "oh shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up runt" Dylan says to him. He was only a few inches taller but noticeably bigger so I got scared that he might actually hurt Fang if provoked.

"Whatever and you can't say anything cus you did it too!" Fang says getting angry.

"Stop!" I say as I get up too.

They completely ignore me though and Dylan just pushes me back softly with his hand "yea but that was different. She actually wants me, she doesn't give a shit about you after you left her" Dylan says.

"Cut it out!" I scream as I get closer again "and quit talking about me like I'm not right here Dylan!"

Iggy then comes over with Nudge, Gazzy, and all the others after they hear the commotion. "Oh oh" I hear Nudge and Iggy say at the same time.

"Not again" Star says aggravated.

Kate looks sad about another fight and starts walking over to stop it until Ratchet grabs her shoulder and says "let them work it out."

Maya simply shakes her head at the situation.

"Max move" Fang says looking over at me right before Dylan shoves him back. "Don't" he warns Dylan firmly.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Dylan threatens.

Iggy looks at me and looks scared. Not from Dylan and Fang though, but for me.

"Dylan" I say coming from his left to his front and looking at him trying to feel as calm as possible.

"Max move" he says and pushes me to his right now. I'm closer to the others now, and Iggy comes and grabs my hand. He tries to walk me back to where the others were, further away, but I stubbornly stay and shake my hand free.

"You guys better not fight over this. It was my fault! I'm the one who did it with both of you. Neither of you knew, so Dylan there's no way it could be Fang's fault so shut up!" I say, so angry now that they were angry, that I actually wanted to hit someone.

Dylan looks at me and gets what I was saying.

Fang had already got it but still wasn't very mad, just sad.

Dylan looks at Fang "sorry. I over reacted didn't I?"

Fang makes a 'ya think?' face but then looks at me again "Why?"

That one word made me feel more awful than any other thing I can remember in my life.

Now Dylan looks at me too "yea Max, why'd you do it?"

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Sorry guys this isn't one of my best chapters but I got stuck and didn't really know how to make this happen. I tried a bunch of things until I got to this and it looks weird, I know…<strong>

**Oh and by the way, I try to make this story as realistic as possible but I realized that what I'm going to make happen is so completely unrealistic and that no one could ever guess it. I mean I knew already that it was impossible but I see how weird it is now. But oh well, it'll make this story pretty original and creative:)**

**Love,**

**~L**


	11. Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

**A.N- Guys I love how you put any doubts and things on the reviews (like some below) because I really want to clear any confusion and answer any questions you have. So please keep it up, and the compliments also make me happy:) Also the poll is still up, so please vote!**

_LOVE HATE DUH_**- Haha sorry I didn't even notice it was cliffy so this update will be for you to make up for it (and I'll actually start on where I left off.)**

_Dopeycookiemonster-_** Fang didn't over react though and Dylan acted like that because of his ability (I'll remind you, he's still not in total control and he senses how Max is feeling; how she is over reacting to everything, so he thinks that's how he feels and acts on that). With me you have to sometimes look at the tiny details because I love to work with that. And Fang has a pretty chill character and since I make him be in love with Max he doesn't get too mad at her for it, just feels betrayed.**

_Mary Kenson_**- Thank you, and I was actually thinking of just scrapping this and redoing it because I thought it sounded all awkward but now I think it was ok. That personality change is explained above ^, and yea I'm actually making him according to his original character. I think it was in Angel that it said how he was learning to talk back some and be more assertive, (from Max) and I'm just extending from that. Thank you:) I'll try.**

Birdwatched- **Yes, yes it is:)**

* * *

><p><strong>Should I Stay Or Should I Go?<strong>

I looked back and forth between them a few times. I knew they wanted an answer. I knew they _deserved_ an answer.

Then I look at the ground "I- I don't know why I did it!" I say starting to cry as I look at their faces again. Fang was starting to look angrier than he had but still not that much, still a little sad. Dylan looked really sad but then changed to angry. "I want to answer you, I really do. But I- it's like how you all told me how you didn't really have control over wanting to fight each other. How you just felt you had to do it, I felt like that… that came out wrong… I didn't feel like some animal in heat or something… I just- I- I don't know" I say as I get up and take off for the woods.

After running for a while, I take my wings out and jump up to a pine tree with a few hard flaps. I climb for a while until I feel like I'm high enough that no one can see me through all of the branches and then go to the thicker branches in the middle. I lean against the trunk in a sitting position with my knees up against my chest and arms on my knees.

With a sigh I put my forehead on my arms and close my eyes to think everything through.

* * *

><p><strong>(Iggy's POV)<strong>

No one had moved, they hadn't even said a word since Max left a while ago.

After she left I'd looked around and saw that Nudge was just speechless, her mouth open, looking at where Max had disappeared to.

Gazzy had wanted to go after her but Dylan had grabbed him and sat him down by him, telling him about how Max wanted to be alone right now and that she would come back. Gazzy didn't say anything, just got up, walked to me, and hugged my waist and cried softy on my stomach. I hugged him back.

Fang had taken a few steps to follow her but thought about it and then just stayed put looking to where she'd gone, like Nudge.

Fang's people didn't know what to do and looked around at the whole situation.

Gazzy was sniffing now, onto my shirt, and started to mumble something. "What's that Gazzy?"

He took his head apart from my wet t-shirt and looked up at me with red puffy eyes "what if she doesn't come back?"

I wiped his wet cheeks with my thumb and answered "you know Max, she would never leave us."

"But she's- never done that before, never- ran from us like- that. Did you see the look she had- on her face?" he said between hiccups.

I stayed quiet, thinking about it. Sure a situation like this had never happened and she's never looked like that, but she'd never actually leave us. Would she? "Gazzy, she would never do that" I say hugging him close again. I looked at Nudge who seemed to sense it and looked back. I motioned with my head over to the woods.

She understood that I wanted her to go after Max and she took off.

I looked at Fang and knew he could feel it but he didn't look at me. I don't even know why but I was mad.

I was mad at both Fang and Dylan. I felt like this was partly their faults. I mean she wouldn't do something like that. Maybe something had happened that we missed.

She had said she felt like she _had_ to do it. Like how they'd felt they _had_ to fight.

I don't know what was happening but I knew that Max would never act like that; she'd wanted to fight tooth and nail against Dr. G when he wanted her to do this, and then just done it willingly a few days later? No way, that wasn't her…

Before that Dylan had started a fight with Fang. Well that was a little like him, not _too_ surprising. But it was a little too much, even for him, to actually hurt Fang like that.

It _was _however, surprising to see Fang be that quick to actually fight back and want to hurt him though. That really wasn't like him.

I could hear someone flying to us now, probably Nudge, but only one person, which worried me a little.

"Hey Fang I think we should just go in now, don't you think?" I say.

He turns back just as Nudge lands to his left "Yea" he says with a blank face.

"I couldn't find her" Nudge says sadly. Fang looks at her and quickens his pace to the boulder.

He walks us to the right side of it and lifts a few long vines from a plant on it away to reveal a secret door. The sides of the oval rock door were all hidden with either moss or plants, so if you looked at it, it would look like it was just another r part of the giant boulder.

He puts both hands on the edge of the door and quickly opens it. It didn't look too heavy, it was pretty thin too. He then walks into the darkness of the hollowed out boulder and waits for everyone to come in. It was a little crowded, but everyone was able to fit inside.

"Is this it? You're 'super safe' hide out is inside some dark, empty boulder that barely fits us all?" Dylan says, crossing his arms as Holden closes the door behind us.

Fang doesn't answer. I was actually thinking the same thing though, if this was really it… Well it was disappointing…

I could see someone, not sure who, maybe Kate or Star, reaching for a ledge on the wall and pull some small objects from it.

"Gazzy don't walk around, you're a half-step away from tripping on a rock" Dylan warns.

I look down at Gazzy's feet and see part of the ground jutting up, and grab his shoulder so he wouldn't move. "You can see in the dark?" I ask as Kate lights a candle with a lighter and put it back on the ledge.

"Yea, like you" he says, as Fang lifts a few tiles up from their place on the ground. The tiles didn't look like they were naturally there if you looked too closely, but if you just caught a quick glimpse, it'd just look like some cracks in the rock floor.

Fang looks up to us and says "OK, now it's not too big of a fall but if you want, you can hold on to the walls as you go down."

As he said that, his gang had been jumping in, one by one, until it was just us up here.

Dylan was the first to go and try it out. He went to the edge and looked down. I guess he could see the bottom because he ended up just jumping in like the others.

Seeing that Dylan wasn't scared of it, Gazzy quickly jumped in next. Nudge eventually followed him, but sat on the edge for a few seconds looking down. Until she mustered up the courage, and finally jumped in. I looked at Fang, he nodded to the hole, encouraging me to go in and he walked to the candle and blew it out.

I could see him then walk to the hole slowly and feel around with his feet a little when he got close. I jumped in when he stepped on the tile he had taken out and reached for it with his hand.

* * *

><p><strong>(Fang's POV)<strong>

When I heard Iggy slide down, I sat on the edge of the shoot. I grabbed one tile and put it in its place, and then I went in the hole and held myself in place with my knees and one hand as I placed the remaining tiles in place above me with the other hand.

I let go of the walls and fell down about ten feet, landing on my feet. Looking around, I saw that someone had already turned on the light switch we had in this dirt cave.

I looked up and saw that the light bulb's light was dimming and twitching. I should fix that soon.

I saw that Star and Kate were talking to Maya as Ratchet talked to Dylan. That was a little weird, but I didn't really care right now.

I wanted to do all this quick and get everyone safely into our hide out so I could go look for Max.

I walked to the seemingly empty wall in front of me and reached my right hand to the far right. I saw a blue light that read my hand print and then the dirt wall opened up with the metal door behind it. I looked back and saw the flock's mouths drop and all of my guys just rushed in as I moved out of their way.

I motioned with my hand for the flock to go in. Gazzy ran in, followed by Nudge quickly walking in and seeming to not be able to look at everything inside fast enough. Iggy didn't look too surprised and blinked a few times trying to see better, and Dylan's eyes went wide as he slowly walked forward after Iggy.

After they all were inside the gigantic underground house, I finally said what I wanted to "I'm going to look for Max while you all look around and everything."

Iggy looked back at me quickly, but didn't say anything. Nudge, Gazzy, and all my guys simply nodded their heads at me and Dylan said "I'm going too."

I didn't bother arguing, since I knew it was no use so I just said "Maya, can you show the flock around and let them pick out their rooms?"

"Sure Fang. Star, I told you to quit eating that!" She said going over to Star who was eating some of Kate's vegetarian food.

I shook my head, but decided to not even get involved and walked out the door we'd just come in from. The last thing I heard before the door closed after Dylan was Kate saying "Please stop yelling M."

"Okay, there's another door over here that's supposed to be an emergency exit, but we can use it now; it opens up in the forest, closer to where Max ran off to" I tell Dylan as I open up another door on the other wall.

"Hey, I'm sorry that I keep being such an ass to you dude" I give him a nod to let him know I heard him, but don't answer. "The new power I have to read emotions, kind of confuses me sometimes. I think I was acting on someone else's emotions, not mine."

"It's whatever" I say as we walk through a tunnel that opened up to us. Some lights turn on as we walk through and the door closes behind us.

We're quiet as we walk through and after a minute or two we finally get to a wall. I look up to the hole with a bunch of metal bars going up it to make a ladder. I grab on and start to climb to the top with Dylan following me a moment later.

When I get to the top, I open the top to the tunnel that opens to the forest and climb out. As Dylan climbs out too, I push the top closed again with my foot. The top was camouflaged like the rest of the secret doors around here, to look like what was around it. In this case: pine needles and grass.

"How did you all make all this?" Dylan finally asks.

"We stole part of it from Hans and made it look like we destroyed everything, so he's not coming back. Then we just built it up with things we could scavenge and some money we got from some friends" I say as we walk around looking for Max.

"Cool" He said nonchalantly, "I think we should split up to find her quicker. You want ground or sky?" he asks me.

"I guess I'll take sky" I say looking up and noticing it was getting dark. Because I didn't have as good of sight as him, I thought it would be better if I had the most light I could get. Instead of the forest trees taking some of the little light there was, I could get the light of the sunset.

I took my wings out and set off, leaving Dylan who immediately started looking around.

I couldn't stop thinking about Max. I don't know _why_ she'd done what she'd done. I don't even know why _I _had done it.

The fact of the matter was that it'd happened and there was no going back. We should all just move forward from this.

But I couldn't, I felt betrayed. Like I didn't know whether she'd done it out of love like I think I had, or just because she felt like it.

And the fact that she did it with Dylan angered me so much too. We've known each other since we were born. She's only known Dylan for less than a year.

How could she just do that like it meant nothing to her? No, that wasn't her. It wasn't me either. It probably _was_ Dylan though, but that's beside the point.

What had she said earlier? That it was like when Dylan and I fought. How we didn't have control over it?

I was in such deep thought that I almost missed something in a tree below me, it almost looked like a person…

* * *

><p><strong>(Max's POV)<strong>

I was done thinking. I knew what I had to do. It would be best for the flock. I can't drag them down like this.

I know they'll be crushed and hate me for this, but it was for the best. I had gone over every aspect of what I was going to do. All the pros and cons.

This seemed like my best option- to just leave them. I knew it was a horrible thing to do and that I wouldn't be any different from Jeb and what he had done to us all those years ago. But _this_ had to be done.

If I left, they would have less to deal with- with all the trouble I brought them. They wouldn't have to deal with helping me with a new child.

Dylan could just lead them, or they could just join Fang's gang. It was their choice.

I felt horrible, like I was leaving half of myself behind, but I knew it had to be done, it would be for the best (or so I keep telling myself.)

I was ready now.

Ready to start anew.

I stood up on the steady branch near the top of the tree and took my wings out. I looked up and saw that it was almost dark now, the sun had almost completely set and the stars were all out.

As I flew up quickly, trying to dodge some branches, I saw a dark figure off to the side. I looked over, expecting to see some eraser or something, even though they're 'retired', but was surprised to see that it was Fang.

I started to fly quicker, so I wouldn't have to explain or to say goodbye, but I felt too tired. I felt completely drained and realized I hadn't eaten much today and what I had eaten, I'd thrown back up. My luck is for shit…

"Max! Stop!" Fang said, flying faster to where I had awkwardly accelerated, then slowed down. I didn't answer though, I just kept flying. I couldn't accelerate but I just kept flying. My speed was still faster than him though, and I bet I could lose him eventually, if I just kept going.

Suddenly, a very familiar robot came up from the woods below and grabbed me. I struggled, but it was no use to struggle against the metallic hold, it was just getting me bruised.

"Max!" Fang screamed. I heard an echo to his voice but then realized that it wasn't him. There was someone else down below.

I looked down, still squirming in the robot's grip and Fang still flying to us, and saw Dylan down below shooting up through the trees.

He came up and hit the robot's jaw, which took its head off and sent sparks everywhere. It went limp and fell down to the trees, still gripping me very tightly. I thought that was the end, my miserable and pathetic life finally coming to an end along with a life that never got a chance to see the world.

No. No way am I letting this life inside of my die. No way in hell!

I struggle quickly and get a surge of adrenaline. I thought that impossible, considering I already had a whole bunch running through my system, but I got the strength to move my arms so strongly that it popped the arms off of the robots body. I then kicked its body back out behind me and tried to take my wings out.

Oh shit…

I hadn't noticed with all the adrenaline, that with the impact the robot had given me, it had squished my wings and probably broke the… again…

It then came to my attention that Fang and Dylan had both been rocketing to me ever since I'd started to fall. I looked down and saw that I was about to hit the trees with what I think would be a fatal impact. I try to take my wings out again, but scream in pain as some bones break even further.

"Help!" I scream, as a final attempt to save the unborn being inside me, as I plummet further to my doom.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Sorry that I ended with a cliffhanger… again. This chapter was just getting too long and I figured this was a good place to end it. Next chapter will be pretty eventful. Oh and hey I have an awesome beta now- <strong>xXAustenGirlXx** who is super nice and I hope that she will stay with me for a while. This is my first chapter to have been beta-fied, (like my new word?) and I hope it has no errors that we missed. **

**Please review with any questions, comments, suggestions or anything else your pretty little heads come up with, I love to hear from you all.**

**Love yall,**

**~L**


	12. Lost Battle But Not Yet  War

**A.N- Just for a reference I want to say that Han's robots are supposed to look like the robots from the movie 'I, Robot' except that their faces aren't so human. Then the cyborgs look like 'The Terminator' guy when he had half of his face off.**

**Also, since winter break's over, I'm going to be updating only on weekends again. Unless it's not a busy week. **

dopeycookiemonster**- Yeah, I had it like this when I started the story and don't know why I ever changed it. I have a lot of language on here and kind of mature themes. **

Birdwatched- **Thank you for that idea but I'm going to stay with the idea I had when I started writing this (hint, hint, wink, wink) like I told you. Thank you so much, it made my day to hear that, and I most certainly will not:)**

* * *

><p><strong>Lost Battle- But Not Yet War <strong>

I was about to hit the top of a pine tree when I closed my eyes thinking that this would be the end. Until I slammed into something- hard.

I had wrapped my arms around my torso protectively long ago, in a useless attempt to save my child. And now that I had felt myself stop falling, I cautiously opened my right eye a slit, still clutching my stomach.

I saw the red light sky from the setting sun and then huge black things filled my vision. I opened my eyes up fully, getting scared all over again, until I slowly realized what they were.

Fang. They were Fang's wings!

He had reached me in time. He had saved my life, and possibly his child's; that part without even knowing.

I looked down and saw that I had fallen with back against his chest. He had wrapped his arms around me, holding me to him as he fell a few feet from the impact and hit the tree against his back.

He stopped flapping when he crashed into the tree, holding onto me with one arm as he tried to grab onto something with the other. We were falling again and there wasn't enough room to safely extend his wings with all the branches around us.

I started to fear for our lives again, until I realized that Dylan was still coming towards us at full-speed.

He reached the tree, right as Fang had started to fall, and reached for us.

He folded his wings in as he came through the trees behind us and fell, more gracefully than Fang and myself, through the branches. He reached for us again as we all fell and finally caught Fang's gray shirt by the hem, which would have been great- if it hadn't ripped.

Fang's shirt ripped up the middle where he was still clutching onto me. I decided to try to reach for something myself and managed to grab a medium-sized branch. It bent really far and almost snapped at the pressure, but we were saved by Dylan; who had grabbed Fang and I's arms.

Him grabbing our arms made us fall slower, so when I grabbed the branch, it made us stop. I realized that Fang had also grabbed a branch by mine, but his had snapped off in his hand.

Now that we had stopped falling, I took the opportunity to look around.

I was now hanging painfully by my left arm on a branch, Fang clutching my torso from behind with his left hand, and Dylan was grabbing our right arms, with his legs out behind him. He was lying on a pile of broken branches that were being held by a slightly broken thicker branch.

I looked down and noticed we had only been about fifteen or twenty feet from hitting the ground.

I breathed a sigh of relief, closing my eyes to soak it all in.

I wasn't dead. Fang and Dylan weren't dead. And most important, my baby wasn't dead…

Once I opened my eyes up again, I saw that something was coming towards us.

"What is that!" I screamed as I squirmed around, trying to get out of the mess.

Fang saw it right as I had and took my arm from Dylan. He took me in his arms and fell gracefully to the ground.

Dylan wasn't as quick and turned to look behind him, at where the thing was, saying "wha-" right as the object exploded around him- where we all had been just seconds ago.

I saw that the object exploded into a huge net that quickly caught Dylan, and some branches that fell with him.

Fang put me down and took his wings out. He jumped up to Dylan, who was now struggling in the net, while he took something out of his pocket.

He hovered by the net and quickly cut it with the thing from his pocket- a knife, until there was a Dylan-sized hole in it.

"Quick, get out through here!" He ordered Dylan as he lifted up the net to open the hole.

As I saw Dylan jump down from the branch, followed by Fang, something was thrown over me from behind.

It was another net, and it was dragged backwards quickly, causing me to fall to the ground.

I let out a loud "Ooof-" as I hit the hard ground, which made Dylan and Fang look back and start racing to me.

I wriggled around until I was looking at the thing dragging me. I saw that it was yet another robot.

I also saw that behind him there were maybe fifteen or twenty others. They all looked like the robots Hans had when we had gone to rescue the flock, which made me suspect he was the one behind all of this.

"Fuck" I let out with a sigh. I was completely worn out. The adrenaline rush had ended and left me with a headache. Basically, I hurt all over. I didn't even _want _to try anymore.

My logic was that since Hans was behind this, that he would most likely want me alive, right?

Well, might as well not even put up a fight, so we won't get hurt than we have to.

With a sigh, I lay back down in the netting and turned my head back, trying to tell them to not fight. I even mouthed for them to wait and then follow me, but either didn't see me or just straight up ignored me. As soon as I mouthed it, they went ahead and charged to the robots.

I knew from that second that they were going to lose this battle.

Even if they could get me out of here, I had no doubt that more robots would just gang up on us. Plus, I knew very well I wouldn't be able to help; I had no energy at all to fight. Those dumb-asses…

Dylan charged for the robot holding the net that I was trapped in and managed to break its arms off.

Note to self: Han's stupid robots' body parts break easily.

He then proceeded to open the net up and grabbed my hand. I got up quickly and saw that a robot was about to hit Dylan's head from behind.

I acted so quick that I even surprised myself- I pushed Dylan shoulder hard, so he would move to the side and went down on all fours backwards. When my hands were supporting me from behind, I swept one of my legs sideways quickly and managed to kick the robots legs out from under it. It went down while its fist punched the air in front of it.

As it fell I tried to get up, ignoring my all-over body ache. I was running on fumes and knew it all too well.

"Max look out!" I heard Fang shout, as Dylan went off to fight and I put my hand on my knees to catch my breath.

I saw that a robot was running straight for me, only a few feet away. I knew I couldn't run in my state so I only managed to put my hands around my stomach right as it hit me.

The robot grabbed me tightly, right over my arms. It flung me over its shoulder with one arm and started sprinting over to the other robots. They all saw him and made way, until we were right in the middle and surrounded by the other robots on all sides.

He started to tie me up with the help of another robot and I did nothing to stop it. I had no fight left in me and I really didn't want to get bounced around or anything anymore.

I could see that all of the robots to the left, where Fang had been, stopped and looked around at each other. I was coming to the conclusion that he turned invisible, when he suddenly appeared right in front of a robot and kicked it in the chest, causing it to fall to the ground backwards. He smashed its head with his foot and the bot went limp right as he turned invisible again. The robots had been about to attack, until they weren't able to see him again and started to look around confusedly again.

That happened again and again so I looked over to see what Dylan was doing.

He was punching everything he saw. He roundhouse kicked a few robots when they got behind him, making holes in their metal covers.

As I looked on helplessly, the robot put me in another net, picked me up again and started to go up into the air.

It didn't have wings and I noticed that on the robot right in front of me- the one that had helped tie me up- that two vents had opened up on its back. There was something coming out of the vents, something that made the air around it start to move visibly (it looked hot).

I looked down and saw that there were only three robots left. One got taken care of by Fang, who pounced on it with both feet and was on him like he was surfing. He bent down and punched its head, which popped off. As it went limp, Fang unfurled his gigantic black wings and flew up to where I was.

As that happened, Dylan had gotten ahold of the two robots by him and banged their heads together so hard that their heads came off backwards and rolled on the floor. I noticed that the robot's (the one in fro at of me) arm had sort of rolled back partly to reveal a screen.

On that screen, I could see a face talking and the robot nodded to it. It then proceeded to fly to the robot holding me.

It flew by me with its arm extended to my face. I saw that Hans was the one on the screen.

"Max, tell Fang and Dylan to stop right now. It is a fruitless attempt, since I have hundreds more robots from where these came from and although this first batch it pretty disposable, the next are not" he tells me, "I suggest you stop Dylan and Fang now or I'm sorry to say, but they _will_ get hurt, and then who will protect your flocks?" he adds evilly.

My eyes widen. He couldn't know where everybody was hiding, could he?

For once, I didn't take the risk and nodded.

The robot threw me over his shoulder again, making me flinch in pain, so that I'm facing the angry, oncoming Fang and Dylan.

"Stop!" I yell at them through the net that was almost cutting my face. They slow down a little from the tone of my voice and seem to be paying attention to me now.

"Hans has hundreds more robots and they're stronger than these! I promise I'll be OK, we all know Hans wants me alive so just forget about me! Go protect the others!" I say and hope that they'll listen.

Duh, of course they don't.

They seem to stop, but then a look overcomes Fang's face, like he remembered something and he races to me again. Dylan hovers for a few more wing strokes and then decides come too.

'_I hate them… I really do…'_ is all I have time to think before the light from the moon is covered.

Robots, hundreds of them, are all I see when my robot drops me again.

I get really scared from the drop until I realize he was still holding the net and that I wouldn't be falling anytime soon.

The newbies are all in a loosely formed wall maybe a quarter of a mile across. These robots looked different though, they looked more like cyborgs than normal robots. They looked bigger too. Stronger.

I wriggled around in the net while I was all tide up, which is not easy let me tell you, so that I could see Fang and Dylan.

Their eyes were wide and they looked a little scared, an expression I don't ever recall seeing in either of their faces.

My heart rate started racing more than usual, I twisted and turned in my net in desperation as I tried to do something, anything to help.

"Leave! Don't try to rescue me! I can take care of myself and I'll come back as soon as I can! Just go!" I scream. Then I turn to the robot that was holding my net "Hey ugly! Let me talk to G."

It seemed unfazed at what I'd just called it and stretched its arm so that it was in front of my face. When it was close enough, the little screen opened up again and showed Hans.

"I know what you're going to ask, and yes- I'll call them off, _if_ you come willingly and let me run a few tests on you. I promise that all of the tests I run won't do you any harm" he tells me sounding oh-so sincere.

Considering I didn't even have the strength or even will-power to fight right now, I decided to agree. I wasn't thrilled about the testing, but if it meant getting everyone out of danger- well then I'd do whatever.

"Alright, whatever. Just let them go and don't try to follow them" I say finally.

He nods, smiling and the screen goes blank. The robot then takes his arm away and flies a little bit faster.

I turn again and look at the guys. They were still in a little bit of shock while looking at the cyborgs. Fang looked like he was calculating something, but was getting nowhere; and Dylan looked super angry and like he just wanted to barrel into them all.

I finally get their attention and mouth 'go'. They look reluctant, but after a moment, they seem to realize that they wouldn't be able to win this one and slowly turn to the woods below.

I watch them until they disappear into the trees and hoped to whatever there is out there, that they won't follow.

I felt like crying now and curl up into a ball inside the net.

I was starving and exhausted, but sometime during the flight I fell asleep inside the uncomfortable net.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Hey guys, I'm going to take the poll down and put a second plot to this story. Hooray! <strong>

**I draw btw, and I wanted to know what you guys would think of the idea of me drawing the flock and putting a link on my profile thing. Let me know in the reviews!**

**Love yall,**

**~L**


	13. Rescue Mission Part One

**A.N- Hey guys, I've been sick all week so I got like four chapters done instead of one. I'm not going to put them up all at once though, sorry about that, but I'll put one up every Tuesday:)**

Madi-** Alright I will, I already have Max, Fang and Dylan:)**

dopeycookiemonster-** I might have some things like that, but I promise not to go into too much detail and I'll warn in the A.N. up here if I do, do that in a chapter. **

LOVE HATE DUH-_Someone's _**excited… Hahah, just kidding. I love your enthusiasm, but I'm sorry to say that she won't find out until she gives birth. Just to keep everyone on edge;).**

* * *

><p><strong>Rescue Mission- Part One<strong>

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I was on a bed. Not the most comfortable one I've ever been in, but still good, considering all the places I've had to sleep in.

I sat up and saw I was in a room exactly like the one we'd been kept in when Hans had taken my flock about a week or so ago.

It had the same cream colored walls, the same rectangular shape, no windows, and one door. The only difference was the furniture. It was also cold, which I remember from the other room too.

Instead of looking like a waiting room, it looked like a bedroom. The bed was on the left corner of the room if you walked in the door. There was a medium-sized couch on the right of the door and a small TV on the right corner. The whole room was carpeted and the lights were turned off.

I got up slowly and looked at the door, hearing something from outside.

"Ah, you're awake." Hans says in a friendly manner. I wanted to spit on his face _so_ bad right now… "I thought you'd be hungry, so I got you some food" he says, walking in the room. He was followed by one of the huge cyborg dudes, who carried a tray piled high with food.

My face remained impassive as I glanced at the tray that he set on the bed, and then gave Hans a death glare.

"Oh come on, Max! I could have just gotten everyone, including your flock, and ran tests on all of them. If you cooperate and don't try to kill anyone, I give you my word that I'll let you go" he says with that creepy face of his.

"Whatever." I mumble and look the food. My stomach grows and I start to wonder how long I was out.

"You can eat it you know" he says, seeing how I was looking at the food "it's not poisoned, trust me. I need you alive; I wouldn't poison your food."

I was honestly so hungry that I wouldn't have minded if it was actually poisoned. So I just dug in. I ate all of the chicken there was and realized that it was actually pretty good. I then stuffed what I'm guessing was chopped potatoes into my mouth and then proceeded to inhale everything else that was in that plate.

After about five minutes of me inhaling the food on the tray, another cyborg came in with another tray and I ate everything in that one too, just a bit slower this time.

As I ate I was also checking out the whole room and the outside when I got glances. I'm pretty sure that this room was in the same hallway as the last one. This one was closer to the end, A.K.A closer to the door out.

"Ok, Max" He starts, taking me out of my daydream of escape plans. "So as I told you before, I'm going to be running a few tests on you and as I promised, they will not bring you any real harm. Ok?"

I put an eyebrow up at the 'any _real_ harm' part, but nodded my head, as I swallowed the last of my food.

"Ok, well, since you're done now, I'd like you to come with me." He says and walks out the door.

I follow him and the two cyborgs follow me. It really creeps me out to think about it too much, how they're part human and part robot.

Their faces were all alike, so that was encouraging. Maybe they weren't really human. They all had the left part of their faces robotic with a red eye that seemed to calculate my every move.

I tried to not make any eye contact with those things because they scared me so bad. I mean who's to say they won't just rebel, like why are they even taking Han's orders anyway? They were like the complete opposite of the regular robots; the regular ones didn't look threatening at all.

We had walked down the hall and then turned left. There were doors every ten or twenty meters. It seemed like this hallway was endless and that we would never get there, when suddenly Hans slowed to a stop by one of the doors.

He opened the door and led me in.

The room was two or three times bigger than the one we had come from and looked like a hospital room. Except for the bed and slightly-safe-feeling parts.

… **An hour later…**

Hans had made me sit in a chair after measuring, weighing, and running several tests on me. He had hooked some sensor things on me and made me run on a treadmill for who knows how long, taken samples of my blood (I had to be held down by the cyborgs for that one), and a bunch of other random/weird tests. The dude even checked my fricken' teeth!

After all of the tests were done and he had written a bunch of things down, he sat in a chair across from me and looked at me.

"Alright I think I'm done with all of the tests, for today at least. I just need to ask you something."

"What?" I ask, aggravated.

"Do you know if you're pregnant?" He asks, looking amused. "If you don't, that's ok because I can just check myself" he says, as if warning me.

I set my face into my well-rehearsed blank expression that I pulled out whenever I was in this kind of situation, when inside I was freaking out.

Shit, shit, shit. Shit!

I could just lie, but he had said that he could just find out for himself. If I told him that I was, who knows what he'll do to me and this kid… But if I said no, he'd just test me and find out the truth…

After a moment I unwillingly tell him "Yea." And then look away to the door.

"Ok, good, so it worked." He says while writing something on his clipboard.

I look up at him, "What? What worked?"

"Oh, I gave you all a gas to help speed things along" he tells me absentmindedly as he writes.

So I wasn't going crazy! I _had_ seen some gas!

"That was you? But why'd you make them try to kill each other before?"

He looks up at me, "Oh no. That was an accident, there was a mix up in the hormones…" and then he mumbles something like "those imbecile" and goes back to writing.

That really pissed me off.

I had already had my suspicions, but him just casually admitting it really got to me.

First of all- he could have killed Dylan, Fang and I.

Second- he got me pregnant! (Not like that) AGAIN!

I get up and push the chair behind me violently, with every intent of hurting him. Not enough to kill him, just enough to scare him; kind off like a warning, But then I get grabbed by one of the cyborgs.

"Let me go, you piece of metallic shit!" I scream, as I kick my legs around under me. The thing was holding me by the wrists and suspending me a few inches from the ground as I thrashed around.

"Max, calm down. It's not good for the baby!"

That made me even angrier and I started to kick the cyborgs legs and yelled, "Don't' you dare tell me what to do!"

He sighed "Max, really now. Quit it before you hurt yourself."

"Shut up!" I scream, and manage to take a hand out of the thing's grip and start to claw the air in front of Hans.

The cyborg then grabs my wrist again, harder this time and I think he breaks it. I let out a cry of pain and Hans says "be careful with her!"

Then he looks at his clipboard again, waves his hand dismissively as he says, "Just give her a few doses of a sedative", and walks out the door.

I scream "Don't walk away from me!" and then everything goes dark…

…

I woke up on the bed again. I'll just call this my room now since I'll probably be here a while.

I got up and walked around the room. It wasn't very big, but I had some room so I stretched my wings out and sat on the couch to see what was on TV.

I had slept on my back and my wings were supper-sore now. Thanks a lot, whoever put me like that…

Ugh, they treated me like an animal! They had fricken sedated me!

I decided to just watch some world news channel and I started to rub my wings while I watched. I could feel some new feathers growing in, in random spots and then noticed that one wing was crooked.

I stood up and turned my neck slightly to look at my back. Yea, they were both crooked actually.

Then I remembered that that stupid robot had broken my wings the other day and I'd forgotten to do anything about it. They hadn't been set right so now they were crooked and I probably wouldn't be able to fly.

Oh, how I hate my life…

My wings were supposed to be strong though. They weren't supposed to break this easily.

They probably hadn't healed completely from the whole collision thing with Fang and Dylan. Great, now I would probably have to get them broken again and set properly.

There was a knock on my door and Hans walked in, "Hello Max" he says, making me slit my eyes. "I don't have any tests for you today, but I'd like to ask you some questions. Just some questions on how fast you normally heal and things like that."

"Why do you want to know that" I ask, snidely.

"Well, if I know a few more details on how much you and the flock grow and develop, I'll be able to know around how long your pregnancy will be, among other things."

"Whatever" I say and follow him out the door to the waiting, ever-present, cyborgs.

* * *

><p><strong>(Fang's POV)<strong>

"Ok, are you all ready?" I ask.

Everyone nods and Gazzy cuts a wire on something he had made, "OK, now I am!" he says and stuffs the bomb in his backpack.

"Alright, let's go" I say and head for an exit we had in the living room. I walked beside the TV and opened the door.

As everyone (with wings) walked in the tunnel, Holden closed the door and waved good-bye. We thought that this would go way smoother if only people who could fly came so only the flock, Maya and I were going to Gat Max back.

The lights in the tunnel had automatically turned on and I was leading everyone to the exit that was close to the boulder we had come in through.

Everyone was quiet until Maya said, "So, does everyone know what to do?"

"Well, I don't remember when exactly I'm supposed to set the bomb off." Gazzy says. He had been walking beside me for a while, probably wanting to ask that.

"Not until we get Max out, OK?" I say slowly, looking down at him.

"Alright, but I mean once you're out- do I wait for an OK, or do I go ahead and blow it up right then?"

"Um, just wait for an OK by me."

He nods and I look forward again. We were almost to the ladder that led out of the tunnel and closer to getting Max back.

Once we were out we all opened up our wings at the same time and I took to the skies, with everyone following shortly.

We had to go south for about three hours to get to Dr. G's lab place.

I hate that guy… All he ever does is make Max's life miserable along with all of ours.

Why can't he just get that we hate him and don't want to help him what-so-ever.

The guy fucking killed me for God's sake, and now he's got Max!

What if he does something to her? What if he makes her pregnant with Dylan's kid again? With him, that is an all too likely possibility.

Or what if 'something goes wrong' like it did with me and he kills her?

"Fang, calm down, dude!" Dylan screams at me, breaking the silence we were all flying in.

"Sorry." I mumble.

"I swear if you're going to be like that all the way there, I might accidently kill Iggy." He says and motions to Iggy behind him. We were fling in a V formation like we used to. I was in the lead, Maya and Dylan were flanking me, Iggy and Nudge were flanking them, and Gazzy was behind Iggy.

"You're kidding right?" Nudge asks, worriedly.

"Yea, I wouldn't actually _kill_ him. I'm sure I have more self-control than _that_" he says looking back to Nudge.

Maya rolls her eyes, annoyed.

"Why do you always do that?" Dylan asks loudly. "You're always rolling your eyes at everything and acting annoyed, and it really bugs me! God, you're like Max, except more annoying." He whispers under his breath.

"What did you just say? Don't you ever compare me to her, you hear that pretty boy?" Maya screams looking at Dylan.

"You even over react like her too!" He adds, just to annoy her more than she already was.

Not a good idea.

Maya stops and Dylan bumps into her, making Nudge stop, so she wouldn't join the collision.

She looks at him with what I'm guessing would be a death-glare. Her death glares were a lot more lethal- looking than Max's, which really says something since Max's glares could kill.

I look back and shout, "Quit it, you two! We have a bunch of miles to cover and we can't stop for your stupid games!"

They look back at me. Maya looked a little scared at how loud that was and they quickly fly to their positions again.

Everyone stayed quiet after that and we flew in that silence for another couple of hours until we finally arrived to Han's lab.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- If you'd like, you can also put baby names in reviews (both a girl and boy since I haven't told you what it is yet). I'll look at them and pick when the time comes. Try to make them really creative and unique;)<strong>

**Love yall,**

**~L **


	14. Rescue Mission Part Two

**A.N- Alright what I'm going to do about updating is- I'll update every every few days. So you might not have to wait a whole week.**

LOVE HATE DUH-** Yea I feel more comfortable with Max's POV but sometimes I feel it necessary to have another POV, if she's out or something.**

dopeycookiemonster- **Awesome names:) I've actually always loved the name Nate haha and Arianna is cool because it could be like in memory or Ari. I really want the name to mean something so that will definitely be an option, but I feel that Skye has been used too much (like in almost every story I've read).**

Bacon is Love- **Thank you:) and I'll try to. Again, I feel that Skye is over used, but I've never heard Sorin. That sounds cool, It'll be an possibility too.**

* * *

><p><strong>Rescue Mission- Part Two<strong>

After I'd told Hans how fast I heal and how fast the scars go away, he seemed to calculate something on a paper he had and then said, "Well, according to my calculations, you should be pregnant for about five or six months. Do you have any questions about it?"

I was still angry about doing this; I'd really wanted my mom to be the one doing this, but since I don't think I'll be able to get out any time soon, I guess this would have to do…

"Yea, I wanted to know if there's a way to find out who the father is…"I say reluctantly.

"Oh, well Max there is a way to do that, but I don't think we should" he says cautiously.

"Why not? I need to know!" I say.

"Well, there are risks to it and I do _not_ want to put that baby at risk in any way. You should just wait until it's born Max."

That shut me up. I really didn't want to put him/her at risk. But I still wanted to know now. So I asked "Exactly what risks are there?"

"Well, there would be a risk of a miscarriage if I did it. Also we would have to wait around six to ten weeks to do it on you."

"What exactly is it?" I ask curiously.

"Well, one way is I would have to stick a needle into your abdomen and into the liqu-"

My eyes had gone wide at the needle part and I had raised my hands to make him stop. I wasn't even considering it, I was just curious at what he'd have to do and now that he mentioned needle, I didn't even want to hear it. "I wanted to know when I'd start to show too" I say.

"Hum, well let's see. It's been about one week since you conceived, and considering your body type and weight you should show at maybe six or seven weeks, but don't take my calculations too seriously, because everyone is different and I might not even be getting all of your growing calculations right."

I nod and I'm not even that annoyed anymore. I mean, he's still the bad guy to me, but I don't think he's _that _evil. Maybe he's really just trying to help me.

"I was also wondering what you were thinking of doing with it once it's born. I wanted to know if you had considered giving it to me. I would still let you see it and visit."

Never mind, I still hate him… "Uh, no thanks!" I say sarcastically. Like I would even consider that! I just remembered that he's the one who got me pregnant (not like that) in the first place!

"Well Max if you don't give me it willingly, I'll just have to take it and I'll never let you see him" he says calmly.

"Over my dead body, you conniving little bastard!" I scream, getting up from my chair to lunge for him.

The cyborg that's always beside me, grabs me though and Hans starts screaming things like "the only bastard is that child you're carrying (oh no he didn't!)", "be careful with her!" and "all that stress is bad for the baby!"

Suddenly, the door busts open and I see Fang as Dylan as the door falls off its hinges sending some dust flying.

As I kick and thrash around in the cyborgs grip, I start screaming "Kill him!" then I elbow the cyborg hard in the chest and lunge for G.

"Ahhhh!" he screams as I jump on him and start punching his face.

The cyborg is about to grabs my back but someone, I think Fang, punches him so hard that it sends him into the wall. Dylan then grabs me softly and tears me from Han's bleeding face. "I think that's enough Max." He tells me quietly.

Hans had passed out after the first punch, but I'd kept punching him. He'd called my baby a bastard and even if it was true, he had no right to say that. It was his fault anyway and I wouldn't care either way. This kid was mine and no one would say that kind of thing and get away with it.

Dylan was holding me by my waist and I was punching him now to try to get to Hans, "Max, please stop. You're even now, he's out cold. Anything else just isn't you. Anyway, we have to get out of here."

Fang looked at us then went to the door, "Come on let's go" he said and then stopped at the door "Shit." I heard him whisper.

I stopped struggling against Dylan and stared at the door as Dylan got in front of me protectively.

Shit was right. Since the door was on the ground now, we could see out into the cyborg filled hallway, and it was _not_ pretty.

"Come quietly, and we will not hurt you" A robot in the front says.

Fang looks back at me and I look around Dylan to him and shake my head. He nods and then Dylan screams "No thanks!" and charges for them.

"No Dylan!" I scream and run to him.

Fang grabs my arm though, right as we see Dylan fly to the back wall, where Fang had thrown the first cyborg. He flew backwards (not with wings) with his arms and legs out in front of him and slams backwards into the wall, making an indentation in the wall.

I then run to Dylan when Fang releases me and Fang follows me.

"Is he ok?" Fang asks, looking down to where I was kneeling.

I put my head on Dylan's chest and hear the quick 'thump thump thump' of his heartbeat. Looking up at Fang, I nod and say, "Yea, he'll live, but we have to just do what they say. They're too strong to fight against, at least not alone."

Fang nods without further questions and we both pick Dylan up.

I put one of his arms over my shoulder and Fang did the same with the other and we walk to the door. "Fine, where do we go?" I ask the cyborgs angrily.

"To your room for now, until the master wakes up" The one in the front says, as another cyborg goes in the room and picks that son of a bitch up.

Fang and I walk to my room slowly, being led by the lead cyborg and being tailed by like twenty others. It takes a while since we have Dylan to carry between us, but when we finally get there the cyborg opens the door with a key and waits for us to enter.

"You will stay" he says like we're dogs and then leaves, closing and locking the door like usual.

"Here, put Dylan on my bed" I tell Fang as I lead us to it. After we put him down I take the covers and cover him. Fang gives me a questioning look and I answer "it's cold in here; you'll notice it after the adrenaline goes away. Trust me, I know."

He nods, still looking skeptical and then looks around the room.

I walk to the couch and sit with t remote in my hand. After I turn the TV on and turn it to the news, I sit back and try to relax.

"No way out?" Fang asks, sitting down with me.

"Nope" I say and close my eyes while listening to the TV.

"What about the vents?" He asks me calmly.

"Don't have a wrench." I answer simply.

"So what are we going to do?" He asks quietly.

We were both talking quietly the whole time in case the cyborgs were trying to listen, but we already knew that the cameras in this room couldn't detect sound. So we didn't have to be _that_ careful, but being a little cautious wouldn't hurt.

"I don't know" I whisper, "I was actually expecting you to bring everyone after you saw how many robots there were" I add, now opening my eyes to look at him.

I was on the right side of the couch, sideways and had my legs slightly up making an upside-down V, so there was some room for Fang. He was on the left side of the couch sitting normally and looking down.

"I brought the flock and Maya though and I told them what to do if we weren't out by tomorrow."

"What's that?"

"They're supposed to call my guys and tell them to come, but I don't know how long that might take. I'm stupid; I should have just brought them. I miscalculated everything, God I'm always doing this. I have no idea how you did this for so many years, I can barely do it for a few months" He says, looking at me now.

After a moment of silence, I say, "Wow, I forgot how much you talk now…"

He chuckles lightly and shakes his head. Now looking at me again, he says, "What's with you Max? You're not like the Max I thought I knew. She would never give up as easily as you do now. She was fearless, lately the first thing you do is just give up, and you barely even try anymore."

I look away from him, at the TV to my right.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to tell him for some reason that I couldn't even understand and what am I supposed to say anyway? 'The reason I've been acting so weird is because Hans got me pregnant again (and again, not like thato.O) and I want to keep the kid safe.'

Well, the keeping him (just going to call him/her a him for now btw) safe part he would understand, but he might not like the idea that Hans did this to me or that he might not even be his, that he might be Dylan's.

I look back at Fang and see that he's staring at me, still wanting an answer. I look down at my stomach then back at him.

No, I wouldn't tell him until that specific subject came up and I had no other choice. I end up just saying, "I guess I'm more aware of my limits now and just know when I'm in over my head." And then look down again.

"So hey, what'd G say that pissed you off so bad? I heard something abou-" He said, but then stopped because we heard Dylan moan from my bed.

We looked over and Dylan got up, with a hand on the back of his head "Ugh, wha' happen?" he asks groggily.

"You got thrown into a wall." Fang says as I get up.

"Are you ok? Does your head hurt too bad?" I ask once I'm at the bed.

"Yea, but I'll be fine." He says normally now, looking around "where are we though?"

"We're in my room, still in Han's lab" I grumble.

"Ok, so before he woke up, I'd asked you something Max" Fang asks, determined to get an answer.

I look back slowly. '_Dang it, I thought he would've forgotten' _I think as Dylan asks "asked what?"

"I asked her why she was so pissed at Hans." He says, putting his elbow on the couch arm and resting his head on it, while looking at us.

"What exactly did you hear from out there?" I ask slowly, trying to see how much damage was done and wondering if I could cover it up or if I had to tell the truth.

"Well, I heard something about if you didn't give him something, that he'd just take it and then you'd never see it again." Says Fang.

"Oh, uh, yea, he, uh… He said that if I didn't let him test me willingly, that he'd never let me see freedom again." I say and smile at myself for that one. I'd thought it was pretty convincing.

They both look at me skeptically, but don't argue.

"But then I heard something about a bastard or something." Dylan adds.

"Yea, I called him that." I say lightly and go to the couch, seeing if they would let it go or not.

"Yea, we got that, but the second time. In that context, he said something about you carrying a bastard?" Dylan asks.

"Um, he was talking about… Fang, yea, and I just uh, got really mad you know?" I say blushing.

"Uh huh…" Dylan says still doubtful.

"Just let it go." Fang says, "Doesn't matter right now." He goes to sit on the couch again and leans back, looking at me "Even if the whole story is completely unbelievable, we should focus on trying to get out."

Dylan comes over and sits between us on the couch "So you think they called your gang yet?" He asks casually.

"Nah, I think they'll be waiting till tomorrow" Fang says, stretching.

"How long do you think the douche will be out?" I ask, equally casual.

They both chuckle and Dylan says "Well, you hit him pretty hard…"

"He'll probably be out 'till tomorrow." Fang finishes.

"Good, I'm tired, I don't want to have to deal with his nonsense any time soon." I say and stretch my legs out in front of me. I look at where the TV was, but don't really watch it, until I finally say, "Hey, you all remember that you were mad at me for what happened?"

They had been looking at the TV like me and now nod their heads to let me know they were listening.

"Well, Hans said he was the one that made me do that."

Long awkward silence…

"What?" Dylan asks, after about three minutes.

"He said he gave all of us some hormones or something and that's why we did… all that. There was a screw up and that's also why you tried to kill each other."

"Ugh, I wanna kill that guy." Fang growls lowly.

I nod in agreement, but keep looking straight ahead.

"Hey, Max?" Dylan says after a while.

I look to my left and notice just how close we all were on this couch. My eyes go a little wide at that, but I still answer, "Yea?"

"Do you regret it?" He asks, looking at me.

"What?" I ask, even though I know exactly what he's asking.

"Do you regret it?" he asks again, "You know, doing what you did. It's fine if you do, I mean I already know you regret it with Fang, but do you regret it with me?" He says, pointing a thumb behind him to Fang.

"Hey, you know I can hear you right?" Fang says aggravated.

I shake my head and get up.

Dylan gets up "No, really-"Dylan starts, but gets cut off when they door opens.


	15. Rescue Mission Part Three

**A.N- Love you guys!**

_Bacon is Love_- **Thanks again and that's really cute:)**

_dopeycookiemonster_ **- Yeah, that'd be cool to do that:)**

_LOVE HATE DUH_-** Yeah, sorry I did. My story just gets too long and I don't want to overwhelm my beta hahah. I'm thinking that I want to make them find out soon, but I want to maybe wait until she starts to show (I'll fast forward a little since I feel like I'm going at a painfully slow pace).**

_DXRough_- **Why thank you:) And I love to make them fight haha, but I also want them to eventually get along. As for the last part… well that's kind of in the story description thingy… just sayin. **

* * *

><p><strong>Rescue Mission- Part Three<strong>

A robot enters the room with what looks like a medical cart loaded with some food trays.

"These- are, for-you." It says in a robotic-tone.

There were some cyborgs at the door too, so none of us even tried to escape as the robot put the cart in the middle of the room and exited.

After we heard the door lock, we started to move.

"Do you think this stuff's poisoned?" Dylan asks poking at some macaroni.

"Nah, Hans wants us alive." I say and pick a tray up.

I walk to my bed, sit down and start eating as Fang gets up.

Fang grabs a tray too and sits back down on the couch to eat it without a word.

Dylan had grabbed a tray after me and was sitting at my feet eating it quickly.

I noticed that there had only been those three, usually I eat two. I didn't get why they hadn't given us each two, maybe it was some kind of punishment.

After we all finished and put the trays back on the cart, another robot came in. He took the cart away without a word and locked the door again.

I was feeling really tired by then and starting to sense how cold it was, so I decided we should start to see how we were all going to sleep.

"Since there's only one bed, do you all have any ideas on how we should sleep?" I ask, breaking the silence.

"You can just sleep on the bed, Dylan and I can just sleep on the ground" Fang says quickly.

"Yeah, it's carpeted anyway, so it's fine" Dylan adds.

I don't know why but I took that the wrong way, "are you saying I can't sleep on the ground? Don't be sexist!" I scream with my hand on my hips.

Fang shakes his head and says "Max, quit over reacting. You know that's not what I meant."

"I know exactly what you meant and you are not going to order me around!" I say grabbing the blanket off my bed and walking to the back wall of the room; in the wide space between my bed and the TV. As I passed them, they let out a sigh.

After I dropped the blanket on the ground, I lay on my side by it and covered myself. "Max, you are just too suborn for your own good" I heard Fang whisper.

"Shut up!" I shout and turn the other way. I close my eyes after a while and quickly fall asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>(Dylan POV)<strong>

Soon after her unnecessary reaction, she was fast asleep and Fang and I were left awake together.

"God, she's so annoying" I hear Fang whisper after a while. He was sitting to her right as she slept and had smiled while he said it, which was kind of creepy since he never smiles.

I felt uncomfortable that he was so close to her, so I moved to her left. "She's not usually _this _annoying though" I say.

"Yea, I know" he says with a nod and then leans his head on the wall, looking up.

Her back was to me and her face to him so when I looked down I could see her wings sticking out of her shirt. "Oh my God, what happened to her wings?" I say surprised when I see them.

They were bending at awkward angles and the feathers were all completely messed up. There were a bunch of bald spots and then new small feathers trying to grow in some spots.

Fang got up and walked around her to see for himself and his eyes went wide.

"Did we do this?" I whisper.

He shakes his head still examining her back, "No, not all of it. They'd healed pretty good after that happened. It must've been when that stupid robot grabbed her."

I look at him, then back at her back. "Couldn't they've at least fixed it?" I ask as I reach my hand to her wings. Fang was watching intently as I touched some of the newly formed feathers when Max's shoulder suddenly twitched.

Max mumbled something, retracting her wings in a little more into her back and she coiled into a ball.

I took my hand away and looked at her as Fang said "Maybe you shouldn't touch her."

I look up at him and realize that he had gotten mad. "She's not yours, you know that right?" I say defensibly and get up too.

I was taller than him, so I looked more threatening now, but he was holding his ground.

"I never said she was" he says impassibly.

"You implied it" I reply.

"Whatever" he tells me and goes back to sit next to her. "And she's definitely not yours either."

I growl inwardly at that but decide to let it go and sit by her too.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max POV)<strong>

I wake up in the middle of the night with my stomach hurting and sit up where I was. I lean on the wall and look around noticing that Fang and Dylan were sitting by me.

I look at them and notice they were both asleep.

Fang had his head against the wall, slightly tilted up and was completely still with his eyes closed.

Dylan had his head fallen on his shoulder closest to me, his mouth slightly open and snoring lightly as he slept.

I got up and put the blanket the long way so it covered both of them.

'_Aww, they look so cute together' _I thought witha chuckle as I walked to the door.

I waited by it for a while until it opened and I was greeted by a cyborg. He led me to the bathroom and stayed by the door while I went in and closed the door behind me.

After I went to the bathroom I realized that it hadn't been because of that, for which my stomach hurt. I leaned against the sink and looked at myself in the mirror.

My forehead was all sweaty and I realized that I really needed to take a shower. I felt all clammy and my head was pounding again.

I already knew that it wasn't going to lead to anything good so I was already by the toilet when my dinner came up.

Ugh… This sucks…

After I washed my mouth out and splashed some water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror again and noticed I had a twig sticking out of my hair.

I wondered how long it'd been there, while I took it out and dropped it on the ground. I'd probably gotten it when we all fell through that tree, that'd been like two days ago…

Shaking my head, I grab the towel and dab it on my face.

After I get back in my room and notice that Dylan and Fang hadn't woken up, I decide to just sleep on the bed. That way if I randomly throw up again, it won't be on them. Although I doubt I will again today, it's better to be safe than sorry

…**A few hours later (in the morning)…**

I wake up to some scuffling behind me. I turn around and hear Dylan say "Oh, ok, there she is."

I raise an eyebrow and get up. "How long have you been up?" I ask as I stand up and stretch. It was freezing in here and I was fighting the urge to just get back under the sheets.

"Not long," Fang says, "we thought they took you though."

"No, sorry I woke up and needed something. You all just looked so cute together, that I didn't want to wake you up." I say with a smile. "So I came to the bed."

They both frown and look at each other, then quickly back at me.

Still smiling, I say "OK, so I came up with a plan to get out, but we'll need to wait until your group gets here."

"We're listening." Dylan tells me.

Fang nods and we all sit in a circle on the floor so I can tell them my plan.

* * *

><p><strong>(Iggy POV)<strong>

"Is everyone ready?" Maya screams at us.

"Yea." I answer, as everyone else nods.

We had called Ratchet, Kate, Star and Holden early in the morning so now we were just waiting.

Waiting for them to come from the hide-out, which might take a while since it took us few hours- even with flying.

We already had a plan figured out that Fang had come up with, with all our help.

We had gone over it while we waited; perfected it and came up with back up plans for the back up plans. We had time to plan what to do if a number of things happened, so we hadn't wasted any time when we realized that Fang, Dylan and Max wouldn't be coming out any time soon.

Maya was looking out of the tree she was sitting in. She was staring off to building that half of the flock was in.

Nudge was sitting with her legs up against her chest; watching on as Gazzy and I made sure that every bomb would work right and would detonate.

As I worked I was thinking of what might have happened to Max and them.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max POV)<strong>

The door opened as Dylan and Fang nodded in understanding.

We all looked to the door and saw a very pissed looking Hans.

"I want all of you to come with me, now." He says.

I stand up as Fang and Dylan do the same behind me. I walked to the door and then behind him as Fang and Dylan walked behind me.

There were Cyborgs on either side of Hans and then some that were walking behind Dylan and Fang. They all looked like they didn't have a care in the world, like they were just taking a walk in the park- when the whole atmosphere was so thick with our tension that you could almost feel it.

Hans finally stopped at a door and opened it, "Alright, Max you'll go in here with me and Fang and Dylan, if you'd be so kind as to follow my friends to the other room right over there. I'd like to have some different tests done on you two." He says.

"No way, I'm not leaving Max!" Dylan shouts.

"Dylan, she won't be in any danger. Trust me. You and Fang will be the ones with the real tests, she'll just get some examinations." Hans says, managing to get me angry.

"You better not do anything bad to them or I swear I'll-" I start.

"You will do nothing Max. You will do what I say and when I say it and you will not do anything to stop me, or else I really _will_ do something to them!" Hans screams at me.

I give him a death glare with all of the anger that I and muster and he steps back a little, but then regains his composure and signals the robots to come.

As the robots lead me to the room I catch a glimpse of Fang and Dylan struggling against the cyborgs that eventually get them in the room across from mine.

After a cyborg sits me down on a chair I see Hans talk to a robot by the door and then hand it some papers. "…and make sure to do all of them, not just the physical ones." I hear him say.

"What are you going to do to them?" I scream at him, as he shuts the door.

"Oh relax Maximum, I only want to see if they're fit and healthy- inside and out."

"Inside?" I scream and stand up, "Over my dead body!"

"I'm not going to cut them up, if that's what you're thinking Max. I'm just going to test their mental capacity and use X-Ray-like machines to look inside of them. I only want to see how much they've grown or if they've mutated further since the last time I was able to examine them."

I stay quiet to think that through, to see if there might be a hidden meaning.

Right as I'm about to sit down, since I didn't think I'd be able to do anything, the cyborg by me sits me down forcibly.

"Hey! Let go of me!" I say, shaking its hand off my shoulder.

"Just stay seated and they won't bother you." Hans says checking some machines, "Alright, well I'll be checking to see what it looks like inside of the womb." he says.

My eyes go wide when I hear him say that. I _so_ did not want to have him anywhere near me or what was inside me.

I really hope the others get here soon.

* * *

><p><strong>(Iggy POV)<strong>

"Alright, you all know what to do!" Maya screams.

The others had come a while ago and we had gone over a few of the back up plans. Now we just had to put Fang's plan to action.

It wasn't a very complicated one, just the usual. Most of us go in, get Max, Fang and Dylan, and then get out. After that we just blow the whole place up.

Sounds easy enough, but Fang had told us how many cyborgs there were. We didn't know how strong they were though so we had to be careful.

"Let's go!" Maya commands.

Maya, Nudge, Gazzy and I took out our wings and flew to the building. I was carrying Kate; the others (Ratchet, Holden and Star) were staying behind in case we needed someone outside.

After Kate busted the locked front door down, we all rushed in and alarms intently went off.

There was a siren going off and red lights flooded the hallways, it wouldn't be long until the cyborgs showed up.

* * *

><p><strong>Love ya!<strong>

**~L**


	16. Barely Missed My Heart

**A.N- Sorry this update took so long. I really don't even have an excuse, I'm just getting bored of this story… sorry. Oh and my beta is going to usually not be able to get on from now on, so sorry for any mistakes.**

dopeycookiemonster- **haha:)**

LOVE HATE DUH- **Yea sorry, I'm a bad updater now. I'll make it go faster after the next chapter.**

* * *

><p><strong>Barely Missed My Heart<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>(Max POV)<strong>

Right as Hans was about to put an ultra sound thing up to my exposed stomach, several loud alarms started going off and he paused.

I let out a loud sigh of relief as he straightened up and asked a cyborg what was going on.

"The main door was breached by five mutants. Twenty cyborgs were sent there, but they were all destroyed." It informs quickly, looking straight ahead.

"Send fifty more and don't let them get away!" Hans orders, putting a little thing that was supposed to go on my stomach down.

"Yes sir." It says and then goes off to carry out his orders.

I was on a bed with my arms and legs held down by restraints, which I could easily get out off.

It was part of my plan that if we were put in restraints that at first we had to pretend to struggle against them. After a while I told them to stop and pretend to give up, so that we wouldn't get stronger ones put on. Then when the time came, we could all get out easily.

"Ok, Max, back to the sonogram." Hans says, "I doubt we'll see anything this first week but I want to see if everything looks normal, or at least nothing bad."

I pretend to struggle again and for good measure, I add a sigh as I 'gave up'.

"You already tried that Max, it hasn't gotten any looser, might as well not even try." He says with a smile, and grabs the little thing again.

Less than ten minutes passed as he checked everything out and decided I looked about four weeks along in the inside. He had time to clean the goo off my stomach before the cyborg by the door spoke up.

"Sir, the mutants have eliminated all fifty cyborgs and are getting close to the control room." It informs urgently.

Han's eyes widen as he realizes he underestimated my flock. "Send all of the remaining cyborgs except for the five best," He says and looks to the side of the room, where a few cyborgs were guarding the room in case I tried something, "That includes you all and the others in the other room, except the one in the other subjects' room and here." He looks around and then screams "Come one, what are you waiting for? Go!"

The all march out of the room and as the door opens all the noise outside floods in. Cyborgs where marching through the halls from every direction to the right, where I'm guessing the entrance and control room were.

I waited for a moment while Hans gathered up some papers, and figured now was my chance to set my plan into motion.

As he reached over in a hurry to undo my leg straps, I kicked him in the face with my now-free leg and he fell to the floor.

I then ripped my other leg out from the strap and saw that the only cyborg remaining in this room was rushing towards me.

When he was within range, I donkey kicked him and he fell to the ground on his back.

Ripping my wrists from the remaining restraints, I leapt down from the hospital bed I was on and pushed it into the cyborg.

He had been trying to get up, but was knocked back down from the force of the bed.

I gathered up all my strength and, forgetting for a moment that it was part human, I punched its head sideways with all my might. His head flew to the side, fell off and rolled on the floor. To my surprise and relief though, there wasn't any blood.

I silently thanked Hans for not actually making these things from real humans and not including blood in them. Although I've had no trouble with it in the past, I was feeling a little nauseous at the moment and didn't know how long I'd last.

Not wasting any time, I rushed to the door and opened it up a crack.

Seeing that all of the cyborgs were already out of sight, I ran to the door across the hall and opened it up in two seconds flat.

When the door is fully open, I see that there were actually three cyborgs in here. They had probably decided that one wouldn't be enough and ignored G's orders. One was leaning on the far wall, just looking around. Another was by Fang's chair (which had straps on his arms and legs) and was injecting something into Fang's wrist. I noticed that part of his arm was bleeding too. The last one was by Dylan's chair (which again, had restraints on him) and was actually cutting different sections of his arm. Light pink scars were neatly placed all over his arm, where they had most likely already cut.

When I pushed the door open they had all looked up and stared at me in surprise for a moment. After that nice little moment though, all three cyborgs ran to me.

I didn't have time to think, I just reacted. I quickly karate-chopped the first one neck (human side) as hard as I possibly could out of anger (the one that had been cutting Dylan up) and actually made his neck snap. It fell to the floor after I simultaneously kicked one of my legs around and knocked him off balance.

The one that had messed with Fang was next and I kicked my foot up as far as I could in front of me and kicked it's head nearly off, except for a few wires that held it in place, and made it fall back. I felt a crack and some minor pain when I did that and concluded that I most likely broke a few toes, but I didn't care right now because the last cyborg was still charging for me.

I knew that I was just getting in some lucky shots and that if I let my guard down even for a second and this cyborg managed to get a hit in…Well then, I'd be done for.

I was already pretty sore and tired since these things were pretty hard and it had taken a lot out of me just to do what I'd done, but I knew that I still needed to get us out of here. So I got ready to do a roundhouse kick.

Before that cyborg got a chance to come near me though, it was tackled and beaten to a pulp by the two guys that I'd almost forgotten were there. Dylan and Fang.

After they broke the thing up into tiny pieces and random parts, they both got up and came to me.

I looked up at them and nodded. They did the same and then followed me as I limp-ran out the door and to where I hoped the flock was still at.

* * *

><p><strong>(Nudge third person POV)<strong>

As everyone was helping Kate bulldoze through all of the cyborgs that seemed to have no end, Nudge remembered about her power that she'd been strengthening for a while now.

She stopped, the others stilling moving forward helping Kate, and concentrated.

When she was sure that she was ready, she held her hands out in the direction of a cyborg that no one seemed to be paying particularly any attention to and made her left hand into a fist. She concentrated hard on the cyborgs face and saw that as fast as she balled her fist-the left side (metal side) of the cyborg's face crumbled inwards.

Nudge smiled, looking at her fist in triumph as the cyborg started to freak out a little.

She looked back up and noticed that Gazzy was looking back at her with an approving smile.

She smiled back, but frowned just as fast.

There was cyborg headed straight for Gazzy and was too close for Gazzy to have a chance of avoiding the punch that was headed straight for his gut.

Nudge saw this and reacted quickly, but surely. Concentrating on what she wanted, she faced her palm to the cyborg approaching Gazzy and quickly moved it up.

As she did this, the cyborg levitated into the air and hit the ceiling with such force that it broke a light above and sent a shower of sparks to the ground. It fell to the ground in a crumpled heap and twitched a little from being electrocuted a second ago on the ceiling.

Nudge looked at her hands, then at Gazzy, smiling.

Her powers had grown and she was sure of what she was capable of doing now. She raised both her hands up to face all of the cyborgs that were fighting with her friends. She concentrated extremely hard and forcefully spread her hands apart as if clutching the air to the sides.

Instantly, all of the 'borgs slammed into each other until half of them were slammed on the left wall and half on the right. Most of them stopped moving after being squished into the walls by the others, but most managed to get out and kept on fighting.

The fighting continued on, with Nudge making all of the cyborgs go to the sides and the others (the flock, Maya and Kate) picked off the ones that still moved, until they were all exhausted and only a few remained.

"How many were there?" Nudge asked, feeling a headache coming on and holding a palm to her forehead.

Everyone was trying to catch their breaths and no one spoke at first.

"A lot…" Gazzy said, breathing heavily.

"Too many." Iggy added, breathing a little calmer, but had his hands on his knees still trying to slow it further.

"I think about eighty- in total." Maya said, taking a breath in between.

Maya had informed everyone long ago about when the scientist made her, how they tried to make her 'better' than Max. She was almost like a first draft for that Omega kid and had been given the ability to remember every bit of information she was given or came across. She had told Nudge once that it wasn't as overwhelming as it sounded and that she couldn't imagine _not _retaining everything, when Nudge had asked.

"Not as many as we used to have to fight." Nudge said.

"Yeah, but we haven't fought like this in months." Gazzy exclaimed, now breathing pretty normally like everyone else.

"Man, we're out of shape. That was harder than it used to be." Iggy commented, while stretching and managed to pop his neck and back.

"Eww, Iggy! I heard that!" Nudge exclaimed.

"Sorry." Iggy apologizes, rubbing his neck.

"I think these were stronger than what we're used to though." Gazzy said, getting back on the topic.

Everyone went silent as they heard a stampede of feet closing in.

"More?" Nudge complained. To her, it was as if her brain was about to explode, like when Max got those headaches when she got the voice. She wasn't sure how long she could use her metal telekinesis; she'd never even used it _this _much before.

"Yea, a _lot _more from what I can hear." Iggy confirmed.

'_Well,__ this is just __great...'_Nudge thought to herself as she and everyone else got in fighting positions.

They were about to attack when they saw who was coming in the front.

She smiled happily, but then realized that one of them was limping and that the cyborgs were about to catch up.

* * *

><p><strong>(Max POV)<strong>

We had encountered Hans in the hallway and he'd called for all the remaining cyborgs to get us.

We ran as fast as we could. I had a hard time since each step sent pain all over my leg, but I limped as quickly and efficiently as I could, ignoring the pain while a bunch of cyborgs started trailing after us.

Fang and Dylan had eventually put my arms on their shoulders and we started to move faster. They were pretty much carrying me.

We finally saw the way out along the flock, Maya and Kate, who were all ready to attack.

I saw Nudge's smile, which she'd gotten when she saw us, turn to a frown when she noticed all of the cyborgs that were behind us.

A serious look overcame her face as she lifted her hands up, grabbing the air and what looked like threw it to the side.

I heard loud crashing sounds from behind and I realized what she was doing. She was using her metal controlling powers so we could get away. I was so happy that the training she had enforced on herself at my mom's was finally paying off.

When we were close enough to them, Maya started to order for everyone to get out.

Kate and Nudge waited a little longer and went after the guys and me.

As we all ran, Nudge kept all of the cyborgs she could, back and Kate got the ones she missed that got too close.

A few long moments passed with us running to the door until we finally got to the double doors, which were on the ground, and we all rushed out.

We were about ten feet out when Fang asked earnestly, "Is everyone out?"

"Yeah!" Maya hollered back at him.

Fang looked to the trees and said "Everyone, fly!"

Dylan and Fang both took their wings out and tried to take off, only ending up whacking each other and myself.

Nudge was now up in the air in front of us, holding Kate by the armpits with her arms. "Come on guys!" She cried, looked back at us.

"Let go, I'll take her!" Dylan said quickly.

"Fine!" Fang exclaimed and took off, making my hair blow to the side.

Dylan wasted no time and picked me up bridal style and forced his wings down powerfully, sending a few brown feathers flying.

Fang had been by Gazzy, talking to him, but was now past everyone and half way to the trees, flying almost as fast as I did. He looked back at Dylan and me, "Now, Ratchet!" I heard him call out in the trees' direction.

I looked back to see if the cyborgs were close, just in time to see a huge explosion that started somewhere inside. The building actually collapsed and most of the cyborgs got trapped (and hopefully crushed) inside.

There was a bunch of smoke in the air but I could make out something rising above it. "Dylan! Hans is getting away!" I tell him.

"Uh, what do I do Max? I can't just leave you on the ground, there's a bunch of cyborgs!" He tells me.

I look around and see that some of the cyborgs that remained were starting to levitate up and come to us "Guys! Don't retreat, fight!" I shout.

"OK, Max!" Gazzy and Iggy shout back.

Star, Holden and Ratchet had run out of the woods and were now fighting with the cyborgs on the ground, slowly taking a few out together.

Nudge had let Kate down and was making some cyborgs fly into each other in the air. Kate was smashing some others on the ground.

Fang had flown back and was heading to where Hans was alone. "No!" I shout, "Someone help Fang!" I add. "Dylan, just let me down, I can fight!" I tell him, moving around.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! There's no time to argue, we need to help!"

He lands gently in a place where not too many cyborgs were around and stays there. I look around and notice everyone was engaged in battle and that Fang was about to reach Hans, who had about five cyborgs with him.

"I'll go." Dylan says, snapping me out of my little freak out that I didn't even realize I was having.

"OK" was all I could say and he was off. He flew as fast as he could to Fang, which wasn't very fast compared to most of us, but he would get to him soon enough.

In the meantime, I decided to at least try and be helpful and I limped to the closest cyborg. He saw me before I was even close and started running to me. I was ready though and punched it in the face.

I'd figured out that if you punched it on the human face side hard enough, then you could hit something inside the head that made the cyborg just stop working. So just about the whole time I fought, that was pretty much all I did. All I _could _do.

Every so often I would look around and see if everyone was OK. Ratchet, Holden and Star had seen me do the head punch thing and were doing that too now. Kate was still ploughing through them all with some help from Maya. Nudge was smashing (Hahaha Nudge smash! ...Sorry). Gazzy and Iggy were working together to fight a dozen cyborgs at the same time. And lastly, Fang and Dylan were fighting in the air with a few of the cyborgs Hans had with him.

Fang and Dylan were actually taking a long time and had only managed to get rid of two. Hans was kind of far away now. He was getting away, but I didn't really care right now because it looked like the guys were getting hurt.

Someone really needed to help them, but everyone was busy. I wanted to help so badly and didn't even get why I hadn't tried.

I took my wings out and heard a few pops that I decided to ignore. I tried to flap my wings down to take off, but I couldn't. Then I remembered that my wings were all messed up.

I jumped a little to see if it helped and I actually was able to take off, twisting my crooked wings to the side more seemed to do the trick.

I only got a few feet in the air though, until gravity took over and I fell. I landed on my broken foot and stifled a cry of pain.

Everyone was finishing up by now and I waved Iggy and Gazzy over.

"What's up Max?" Iggy asks when they land by me.

"Could you guys help Dylan and Fang, I think they need it." I say quickly, pointing the spot above the rubble that they were fighting at.

"Yeah, I'll go. Gazzy, stay with Max." Iggy says before taking off.

When Iggy finally got to them, I saw that the cyborgs had taken out guns.

'_Oh__ no. No, no, no, __no!'_I thought, feeling adrenaline pour into my bloodstream.

"Max, are you OK?" Gazzy asked worriedly, right as we all heard gun shots.

I felt like my whole body froze over when I saw a bird-kid drop into the rubble. A black-winged bird-kid.

I couldn't really think straight after that, but I remember seeing another dark-winged bird kid tackle a cyborg in mid-air and heard another gunshot as they dropped down too.

I was on the ground and shaking and I think someone was talking to me, but I'm not sure who.

All I know was that one of those gunshots felt like it had hit my heart and the other, like it had barely missed it.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- I feel like cliff-hangers are all I ever do now… hahah. <strong>

**If you want to help me out a little, please leave some suggestions, for what should happen next, in a review. I don't really feel inspired anymore for what should happen after a time jump. **

**Also- I finished a (Manga) pic of Fang, Max and Dylan. Sorry it took so long but I've been really busy. Does anyone know how to attach a link to a profile? I couldn't find it on Google. Oh and I'm going to draw the whole group (Flock and Fang's gang) too, but it'll take a while.**


	17. Straight Wings And Curvy Halls

**A.N- I know that what happens to Fang might not be possible, and I try to make the story as factual as I can, but pretend just for me ok?:)**

DXRough**- Thanks, I'll try.**

dopeycookiemonster-** I bet you can:) and don't think I'm like an amazing drawer or anything, cuz I'm really not hahah.**

LOVE HATE DUH**- Yea, it was them. I'm awful aren't I? Hahah.**

ILOVETHEMAXIMMRIDEBOOKS**- Thanks for trying to help but my problem is that it's not on a website, it's in my pictures. So should I put it on some website? If so what website?**

* * *

><p><strong>Straight Wings And Curvy Halls<strong>

* * *

><p>"Ok Max, I promise that I'll do this as quickly as possible, ok?" Iggy reassures me from behind, with a hand on my shoulder.<p>

I nod my head, still looking at the ground like I have been for a long time.

Now before you go assuming anything: no, were not doing anything bad, you dirty minded creeps…

We were in a hospital and my dear mother thought that this would be a wonderful time to teach Iggs how to reset bones.

Well it wasn't for me, and I was the only 'guinea bird' that was able to be used for this since I had a messed up wrist, foot, and wings. I didn't really have any other choice other than to cooperate, and I didn't feel like resisting anyway.

I didn't feel like doing anything actually.

I wince as I feel Iggy's hand stretch out my crooked wing. I didn't resist thought and kept looking at the ground.

The flock and Fang's guys were in the room with us and were all watching intently, I'm sure. This was the most entertainment they'd had in a few days.

Fang and Dylan though, were in another room. Dylan had gotten shot under the collarbone and the shot hadn't hit anything important so he'd be fine probably by tomorrow. Fang, however, was in a different situation.

Fang had gotten shot very close to the heart and had to be operated on quickly, for what had felt like forever. The bullet had actually gone cleanly through him right beside his heart and hadn't pierced it, but it had gone through a lung. They said that he should be okay, but I wouldn't; not until I saw him.

"Alright Iggy, now doctors usually use a mallet but I think you can use your fingers, that way if you need to do this on the road you'll have everything you need." I sense Iggy nod behind me and then plunge a needle into my wing.

"So I just put all of it in?" He asks as I start to lose feeling in my left wing.

"Yeah, and if you don't have any anesthetics you have to get this done as quick as possible because it'll only feel worse the longer you take." My mom tells him as she walks in front of me. "Are you ready honey?"

I shrug and say nothing, still not looking from the spot on the tiled floor.

My mom kneels on the floor in front of me to look at me in the eyes. "Max, he'll be ok. They both will, trust me." She tells me with a sympathetic look.

I look in her chocolate brown eyes, the ones that look so much like my own. The eyes that had shown me just how much love can be shown from one look.

I nod and she gives me a warm smile before turning back to Iggy.

"Ok Max, I'm gonna do it now…" Iggy warns and I think his grip on my wing tightens.

I'm surprised to not feel anything and after a while I look slightly up to my mom, wondering if it was already over.

She was patiently looking at Iggy.

"I- Sorry, I can't do it… I don't want to hurt Max." I hear Iggy utter from behind me and release my wing.

"Iggy, it's fine. I'd rather you all do this than anyone else." I tell him reassuringly.

Those had been the first words I'd spoken since I woke up in this hospital a few days ago and started freaking out over Fang and Dylan; Iggy realized that and nodded, putting his hands back to my wings a moment later.

I felt some pressure and then one of my big wing bones felt like it snapped. It didn't hurt too badly though so I only winced slightly. "Sorry." Iggy whispers to me. I feel the bones grinding a little which made me feel uncomfortable, but then it was back in place and it felt better than before.

My mom walked closer to my back and felt the place where Iggy's hands had been. "Feels perfect Iggy." She compliment, then walks to the wall. "Now we should do this one beside it, so that it won't put too much pressure on the other ones..." She says pointing to a lit up x-ray of my wings.

… **A few hours later…**

"All done Max!" Iggy says happily. "Are you ok?" he asks kneeling down in front of me to see my face.

I look in his pale blue eyes and nod, and then look around. My mom wasn't there so I took the opportunity and asked, "You check all the labels?" quietly.

He looked confused for a second then got what I was asking. "Yeah, they were all pretty mild and shouldn't do anything." He whispers to me.

Looking around again, I see that no one was paying attention to us. I sigh, "I should tell them, at least my mom for now. I can't keep doing this and I'm afraid something might happen when you're not with me to watch over everything." I whisper for only him to hear.

"I think you should, too. You can't hide it forever after all…" He looks back to the others, who were talking amongst themselves and eating some hospital food. "Why, did you want to do it now? I can go with you if you want."

"Please?" I beg with a smile.

"Let's go." Iggy says, offering a hand while returning a smile.

I take it and get up from the bed I had been sitting on. Everyone looks up questionably. "We'll be right back, were going to get more food and another X-ray done on my wings." I lie with an easy smile. They all believe me and go back to their business.

My mom was with Fang and Dylan. No one was allowed to do anything important to them unless my mom was in the room, which I was happy about. So we had to go to their room to get my mom, and that meant that I could finally see them!

I quickened my pace at that thought and Iggy sped up right alongside me. "Slow down, she's not going anywhere." He tells me.

I slow to a light jog, seconds before we arrive at their door. Iggy looks down at me and asks "Ok, are you ready?"

Iggy had already came to see them so the doctors could see what was normal for us bird kids and compare it to Fang and Dylan, but I still hadn't because they had to check if I was OK… aaaand they didn't want me to freak out… again…

I nod vigorously and turn the door knob.

A small smile comes to my lips when I open the door and see Dylan slowly standing up- with the help of a doctor. "Dylan." I say as he sees me too. He wasn't wearing a shirt and had a bunch of gauze wrapping the right side of his chest, over his shoulder and under his arm.

He sees me and his grimace turns into a huge goofy smile that anyone else would have been embarrassed to be seen with, but I was glad to see it. "Max!" He greets happily.

The doctor gives a patient smile and says "Alright, now you can walk around for a bit, but you'll have to come back in a little bit if you get too lightheaded. I'm still not sure that your body has made enough blood yet."

He nods while waving the doctor carelessly away, and is already half way to me when he asks "Max, are you OK?" worriedly.

"Am _I_ OK? What about you?" I ask with a smile. "You're the one that got sho-" And then I remember… "Where's Fang?" I ask with urgency, looking around quickly.

"Uh, um he's over there, but-" Dylan says as I run to the other side of the room, leaving a frowning Dylan in the dust.


	18. Mates For Life?

**A.N-** **I've been putting my chapters up before my beta has a chance to fix things, so the first few days that my chapters are up will be unedited; until she has a chance to correct things, and then I update them. I just felt like letting everyone- that reads this- know. I do that so that you all can have the story faster;) You're welcome:)**

_Bacon is Love-_ **Thank you:) I appreciate it.**

_sarah. twilightfan1_- **Haha, thanks, and don't worry… He'll probably be fine…:)**

_dopeycookiemonster-_ **BUT it's part of my story**** hahha.**

* * *

><p><strong>Mates For Life<strong>

* * *

><p>Fang and Dylan were staring at me. I knew they were mad. It had been my fault after all…<p>

"_How could you have done that Max?"_ Dylan asks me angrily shaking my shoulder.

"_I… I didn't mean to! I'm so sorry!" _I beg on the verge of tears, as I lower my head so I didn't have to look at their anger filled eyes any longer.

"_We can't go back and undo I, what's done is done."_ Fang says to Dylan, then turns to me again when I look up_. "I guess we'll just have to get rid of that… that _thing_." _He says a little louder.

They both have evil smiles on their faces now, as they slowly get closer to me. _"No! Please, no!"_ I start backing up as quickly as I can, but trip on something that was on the floor and fall. I start screaming and try to kick my way back as they get closer.

It's no use though; no one else was home, I wouldn't be able to overpower them both anyway. Whose ever baby this is, will die here…

"Max!" Someone whisper-screamed.

I pull my head up super fast, hitting something on my way up. I blinked rapidly and noticed that I had been crying in my sleep. My arm was wet with tears where I had laid my head on it, on Fang's hospital bed.

Yesterday I had run into Fang's half of the room and seen that a doctor was changing the bandaged on his chest, supervised by my mom of course. The bandage was a little bloody, but he was out cold. He had on one of those masks that help you breathe. I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach seeming him like that, but at the same time I felt like I was complete again once I saw him.

After about half an hour, when they were done checking him, my mom told me that I could stay if I wanted to. So I brought a chair up to his side and stayed there the rest of the day, and night. Iggy left after a few minutes, seeing that I wasn't going to tell my mom.

I wiped my wet eyes and looked back. Seeing that I'd hit someone's arm with my head, I looked up to it's owner.

"Hey, Dylan. Did you just wake up? What time is it?" I ask looking around for a clock.

"It's seven, and yea I just woke up. I heard you crying in your sleep and got worried." He informs me, concerned.

I don't say anything and decide to change the subject. "So are you feeling any better? Sleep OK?"

"Yea, I'm fine now." He whispers. He looks behind me and a while passes before he says something again. "You know you can talk to me about whatever right? I'll listen." He then looks at Fang again. "And he'll be fine too." He breathes sadly, then he walks away.

I look back at Fang. He looked completely at peace- his mouth in its natural straight line and his chest slowly rising and falling with each breath.

I decide to get up and go to Dylan. "Dylan hang on-"

"It's OK Max; you can't change the way you feel. I can't either though, so don't try to make me."

"I wasn't going to, I know we can't." I sigh. "But you're part of my flock, and I _do _love you, you have to know that."

"It's not the same type of love though, Max." Then he whispers "That's probably what Hans meant."

I flinch at him name, but ask "What?" confused.

He looks at me for a few seconds, then back at Fang. "He told me that- he was pretty sure that, most of the flock was made with DNA from birds that… mate for life." He looks down. "He told me I had to be your first. Or else I would have even less of a chance to get you."

I got mad and was about to scream at him until I remembered that Hans was the one that said that, not Dylan.

I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration. "Dylan… We're, mostly, humans, I'm sure we decide on our own. Not on some avian 'instinct'. And I am _not_ some _thing _to be possessed, so get that through your head."

When I said _thing,_ I remembered my dream and a chill went down my spine. I started to feel self conscious about whether people could tell or not, so I risked a quick glance down to my abdomen.

After a second I let out an internal sigh of relief when I see that I'm still not showing, and look back up to Dylan.

"You OK?" He asks cocking an eyebrow at me.

"Yea, why wouldn't I be?" I ask.

"You just got really scared for a second, but whatever. You hungry?"

"Uh, no, not really."

The door opens at that moment and two doctors come in along with my mom.

"Oh good, you're both up. Dylan, are you feeling OK?" My mom asks.

"Perfect." Dylan answers with an easy smile.

"Well that's good, but the doctors still think you should rest for at least one more day, and I agree." My mom says as she looks at some papers that the doctors had given her, like usual. When she looks up again, she says "Oh, you all are probably starving, aren't you?" concerned.

"Yes!" Dylan answers eagerly. "And no matter what she says, I know Max is too." He adds as an afterthought.

As he said that, I had already gone to Fang's side and sat on the chair, dismissing the offer of food so I wouldn't be far from Fang.

I look on at them from my seat as I hold Fang's head and see Dylan shaking his head and look to my mom.

"Max, you have to eat. I'm making them bring in some food, so you won't have to leave, alright?" She says, but I wasn't really paying attention to much. Other than the two doctors that were way too close to Fang than I was comfortable with…

It was night time before I knew it and my mom had left with the doctors a long time ago, with the orders to make me eat for Dylan, which he had filled.

Pretty soon, nature called and I had to answer. After I had, I decided to check my stomach. I hadn't ever really checked to see if I was showing, only over my baggy-ish hoodie, which would probably hide a bump if there ever was one.

I slowly lifted my hoodie and shirt along with it. I sucked in audible gasp and bit my lip at what I saw.

I _was_ showing.

I heard some quick footsteps from outside and then strong knocking on my door. "Max! What happened?" Dylan almost screamed, through the door of the hospital room's small bathroom.

* * *

><p><strong>Love,<strong>

**~L**


	19. Mother Daughter

**A.N- I know, I know… Super long chapter, but I hope you like it anyway. Happy Valentine's Day! I (less than)3 you all!**

**So I've been getting a whole bunch of reviews, and don't get me wrong, I LOVE that, but I feel like I've already been taking up too much room with the author's note already. So here's what I'll do: I'll still thank you all for the review by name, but unless it's a question that I feel needs to be answered, I won't be answering specially. I'm sorry and I hope you understand.**

**THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS, (you have no idea how happy they made me)- **Anita Yuan, 1, dopeycookiemonster (hahah, that's funny), Toodles23, lax4life22, Emma Raab (yes they did, but Fang and Max did first so there's a stronger connection), LOVE HATE DUH (I think your questions are answered in this chap:)).

* * *

><p><strong>Mother- Daughter<strong>

* * *

><p>I had forgotten that Dylan could sense what I felt, and that I had to control my emotions around him; like I'd used to have to do around Angle with my thoughts.<p>

"Max!" Dylan screamed getting scared when I wouldn't answer and pounding on the door some more.

"I'm fine; now quit it before you break the fucking door!" I yell at him, through the door.

I took my hoodie off and threw it on the ground, then I lifted my shirt up some to expose my stomach. As I turned to the side to look at the mirror, I let out a quiet sigh of relief.

I _was_ showing, but no one that didn't know what it normally looked like would be able to notice. Or at least I hoped…

I quickly snatched my sweatshirt and put it over my head.

When I bent over I could have sworn I felt something in my stomach so I froze. I waited a moment, but since I didn't feel it again I just forgot about it and finished what I had been doing.

I bet that Dylan was still freaking out behind the door to my left. So I took my hair out of my sweatshirt, so I wouldn't look different from when I came in, and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.

"Max?" I hear Dylan say quietly.

Once I open the door, Dylan almost falls in. He had been leaning on the door with all of his weight and I had to catch him, which pissed me off.

"Were you listening in to me in the bathroom?" I scream.

"No! It wasn't like that!" He says trying to defend himself, with his palms out in front of him. "I was just…"

"God Dylan, you're such a creep!" I tell him and walk away disgusted to Fang's bed.

"No, Max, hang on!" He says after a sigh and then runs to catch up to my speed walk.

When I get to Fang's bed, I feel Dylan's hand on my shoulder and turn to face him head on.

"Don't touch me." I say lowly.

"Listen to me!" He screams.

"Don't. Touch. Her." We both hear as a growl, from behind me.

I turn my death glare intended for Dylan, to one of surprise after hen I see Fang's opened (and angry) eyes; which were looking behind me now and up to Dylan. He was holding his breathing mask thing away from his mouth so he could talk.

"I wasn't doing anything to her! She's just not listening to me and I had to say something."

"Fang, you're awake!" I shriek and kneel beside his bed.

"Yeah, I woke up when someone started pounding on a door." He says, changing the angry expression on his face to his normal, expressionless, one.

"Oh, that was Dylan…"

"She was freaking out inside!" Dylan shouts.

"You were, why?" Fang asks worriedly.

"I was not!"

"Max, I could feel it. You got so scared it was almost as bad as your dream."

"What dream?" Fang asks from down below, after I quickly stand.

"You could see my dream?" I ask loudly with wide eyes.

"I never said that Max. I could feel your emotions through it all though and it felt bed. What was it anyway?"

"I saw the whole shooting thing from the other day again… I- saw you both dropping again." I lie.

Dylan looks unsure and opens his mouth up to say something, when Fang speaks up again. "So what was so important that you had to grab her like that Dylan?" He asks a little angered again.

Dylan closes his mouth and looks down at Fang, then back at me and says. "Oh yeah, I got confused because when I was trying to find out if you were ok, I got kind of mixed emotions. It was like I was reading two people's emotions, it was weird… And I didn't even grab her hard!"

"It was just me in there though. Maybe it was just because I was feeling a lot of things at once." I say confused that he felt that.

"No, it felt like more than one person's feelings." He defends.

"So what happened in the bathroom that made him almost break the door?" Fang asks.

Crap… I'm screwed…

"I dropped my phone in the toilet." I try.

They both look at each other, then back at me.

"Max, you gave your broken phone to Gazzy. Remember?" Fang says.

"I don't think anyone would react that way for a phone either, Max." Dylan adds.

Crap, crap, crap, crap!

Just then, the door opens and a nurse, who didn't even look old enough to work here, comes to this half of the room.

Thank you God!

"Oh hello." She says, checking Fang out, which pissed me off completely. "We just got a notice that Fang regained consciousness, so I was just making sure. I'll be right back and get a doctor alright?" She says in a sweet voice that made me want to punch her stupid little face.

She looked at me when I thought that so I smiled at her and she smiled back.

"You don't have to stay here, you know?" She said smiling still, her words sounding like they had a hidden meaning under them. "And Dylan, you're allowed out now."

I glared at her as Dylan says. "Ok, thanks."

She looks at Fang again with a smile, then back at me, with a less friendly smile; before walking away.

I hear the door close and remember what was happening before it had opened.

I look up at Dylan "Stay here and keep and keep an eye on Fang, alright?" I tell him, and walk away before either of them has a chance to protest.

I walk as quickly as I can, without breaking out into a full out sprint, to the room my flock was in.

When I get in, I remember that it was night time when I see that all the lights were out. "Oh Max, it's just you."

I look around the dark room with the little light that was coming in from the opened door and see a tall, slender figure- (that I guess to be Iggy from the voice) holding something in the air.

I turn the light on and instantly get attacked by two bird-kids that were super happy to see me. "Max! You're finally back; it's been like two days! We thought that you like forgot about us of something." Nudge squeals.

"Nudge, shh. We're in a hospital and it's in the middle of the night." I say and realize what a hypocrite I'm being, when I had just been screaming at Dylan not more than five minutes earlier.

"What did you do Max? How are Fang and Dylan?" Gazzy asks.

I go and sit on the bed closest to me as Iggy puts down a metal rod beside it. There was a piece on the side of the bed that was missing so I guessed that, that was where he's gotten it from.

After I was sitting, Nudge sat to my left with eager eyes, to hear more and Iggy to my right with Gazzy plopping down on my lap.

"Sorry I left for so long, the time just flew by. Well anyway, Dylan is doing fine and he can leave the room now, but I made him stay with Fang so I could come to you all. And Fang, well he just now woke up; I think he'll be fine (thank God)." I inform them.

We talked for a few more minutes after that until I made Nude and Gazzy go to sleep so I could talk to Iggy.

"So did you tell them?" He whispers casually after we think the kids fall asleep.

"No. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I got this close-" I make a pinching motion with my thumb and pointer finger "to telling them when I ran out of lies, but then I chickened out after an _interruption_ and couldn't do it." I tell him sadly.

"… So you wanted my help." He summarizes with a smile.

"Yeah…" I sigh.

"Fine. I'll help you, but you better not leave me like last time with your mom."

"Oh, that reminds me-!" I say remembering. "I need to tell my mom too!"

"Shh." He tells me.

"Whatever… They're probably listening in anyway. Aren't you guys?" I say.

"No we're not!" Gazzy exclaims.

I roll my eyes and walk to the door. "I'll be right back." I tell them as I walk out.

I go to get my mom, who was about to leave Fang and Dylan's room when I opened the door, and I take her to my room.

"Max, what were you talking about? Iggy won't tell me." Gazzy begs.

Nudge was looking awkward on the chair she had been 'sleeping' on, but didn't say anything.

Iggy came beside me as I sat with my mom on the bed and Gazzy stood in front of us.

"I'm about to tell you." I answer Gazzy nervously.

"Ok Max, so what was it you had to tell me." My mom finally asks.

I take a deep breath and try to swallow the huge lump in my throat.

I feel Iggy put his hand on my shoulder reassuringly and look up at him. He nods as if telling me to go on and I look back to my mom.

"Mom… Please don't love me any less after I say this…" I start, sweating bullets.

"Oh honey, there is nothing you could ever say that would _ever _make me love you any less." She tells me, grabbing my hand in hers.

I smile at her for a moment, looking into her eyes. Then the smile goes away and I close my eyes. "I- I'm pregnant." I stutter out quickly.

There was a long quiet pause until Gazzy innocently asks "Again?" and I open my eyes.

My mom looks shocked and looks at Gazzy, then back at me and asks. "Again? What does he mean, 'again'? When did this happen? Who did this happen with? I thought you wanted to wait." Then she looks up at Iggy. "You, two…" She gestures to us. "You didn't…"

"No mom!" I yell.

"No!" Iggy exclaims behind be and takes his hand away from my shoulder and backs away.

"Oh, ok. Sorry, I just thought- since you know, you've been around each other so much.

"No, I've just been watching over her."

"Yeah mom. And as I was about to say, I didn't exactly do this out of my own free will." I relax a little once I see that my mom isn't freaking out like I'd thought she would. "Hans sort of-"

"Hans! I thought we'd made it very clear that you were too young!" She exclaims, flabbergasted (haha funny word).

"Yeah, I know! But anyway, he gave us this gas or something while we were all out in the desert and well… need I say more?" I say looking down.

"Aww, sweetie. I can't believe that idiot did this to you." She says furiously. Then she looks at me. "Who did you-" She looks around and notices that Iggy, Nudge and especially Gazzy were listening intently at our conversation. "-Who's the father?"

"I don't know actually. It might be either Fang or Dylan, I'm not sure." I say, looking down again- blushing.

"Have you told them yet?"

"No." I look up. "I wanted to tell you first. Oh and the first time this happened, it was Hans too. I'm not sure how, but he somehow got me impregnated with Dylan's child."

"Well thank you for telling me Max, and remember, I will always love you no matter what. Especially if it wasn't even your fault to begin with." She says coming in to hug me.

I was used to her hugs now. They were like one of the flock's hugs; they'd always be welcomed. "I love you mom." I whisper into her hair.

"I love you too sweetie and I always will." We break apart and she puts on a more serious look. "You'll have to be more careful now, alright. What might not do anything at all to you, might be really harmful to the baby. Do Dylan and Fang know yet?" "Uh, no… I was actually going to tell them, with the help of Iggy here, after I told you."

"Ok, I can stay here with the kids, if you want."

"Thanks mom, and make sure they go to sleep. It's way past the time they were supposed to be asleep."

"How do you expect us to sleep with this much stuff going on!" Gazzy asks.

"Yeah Max, now we want to be there to see their faces! Oh em gee! I can already imagine! Does anyone have a camera? I want to capture the moment you guys!"

I roll my eyes, but can't help the smile that comes to my lips. "Go to sleep you two. You'll get to hear all about it tomorrow morning. Now good night." I tell them.

"Night Max, good luck!" They both tell me.

* * *

><p><strong>Love you!<strong>

**~L**


	20. Awkward Made Easy

**A.N- Hey you guys, just wanted to tell you all that **_ChaosFangX_ **and I will be continuing his/her story **The Avian Species **on my page. Warning: It might not be for everyone… Just saying… But if you'd like to check it out, **we'd really appreciate it. ****

**Thank you reviewers!: **_lax4life22, dopeycookiemonster, _**and **_Kait:)_

* * *

><p><strong>Awkward Made Easy<strong>

* * *

><p>Iggy and I were outside of the guys' room now. Iggy had put his hand on the doorknob, but I had stopped him right as he'd started to turn it.<p>

"What's wrong Max?" He asks, turning to me.

I look into his eyes and realize that the fogginess was somewhat going away. It was still there, but it had been getting less noticeable for a long time now and his eyes were getting their icy blue color back. They showed confusion until he saw my expression and spoke again.

"Nothing will go wrong-" He tells me. "-and you've already put this off long enough. They need to know this, Max, trust me."

"I know they do, Iggy. But I just know that they'll be mad at me for keeping it from them for so long, and what if they don't even want this? What if they hate me for it? What if they want nothing to do with me after this?" I start talking and breathing faster at the thought.

"And do you really think that keeping it from them will help? Besides, I know them. Sure they'll get mad, but there's no doubt in my mind that they'll forgive you." He reassures me, then adds, "Now quit breathing like that, you'll start hyperventilating and I'll have to get your mom."

"I had a dream that they tried to kill him. And yes, I know it was just a dream, but it really scared me." I whisper, looking down and sniffling.

He bends down to look in my eyes, "They'd never do that Max. Dylan is… Dylan, we may have not known him for a long time, but he's proven himself time and time again. And we've both know Fang for all our life and you know how he is. He'd kill anything that even _tried _to hurt our family, especially if you're involved. And this little guy in here-" He says touching my stomach. "-is definitely family, no matter what, don't forget that."

I take a deep breath and look back up, tying to compose my face. "Yeah, you're right Iggy. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Now let's go in quick before you change your mind!" He says in a rush, as he opens the door and shoves me in before him.

When I looked up, I saw Dylan looking out the window, leaning with his palms on the ledge.

Fang was talking, or should I say arguing, with a doctor. He was now sitting up in the bed instead of lying down.

When Fang saw us, he furrowed his eyebrows slightly less and looked to the doctor again. "There they are now, you can ask them." He says, folding his arms over his bare chest.

"Ask us what?" Iggy speaks up from behind me.

"He says that he is well enough to leave now." The doctor says doubtingly as he takes the IV drip from Fang's wrist.

"He looks fine; I bet he'll fine to leave by tomorrow morning." Iggy says.

The doctor sighs. "I will talk to Dr. Martinez tomorrow. If she says it's alright, then you will be free to go." He tells us before he opens the door and leaves.

"Hey Max; Iggy." Dylan greets from the window.

"Hey." I say and Iggy, now beside me, nods.

"You've been gone a while. What'd you have to do?" Fang asks, sitting up a little straighter.

"I went and put the kids to bed." I tell him. Well, it wasn't a lie…

Iggy clears his throat. "Hey guys, I think Max needs to tell you something." He announces, nudging me with his arm.

I fight down my fear and open my mouth to speak, even thought I didn't really know how to start. The suddenly the door opens again, making me look back.

"Oh, young lady, I forgot to say something sooner. Could I speak with you alone?" The same doctor as before asks me quietly.

Alone? Why would he want to speak with me alone? What if he was an Eraser?

No, couldn't be, they'd been retired for a while now.

Maybe some kind of robot or cyborg. No way would I be alone with this guy.

"Whatever it is, you can say it right here. I don't mind." I tell him, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.

"Are you sure? It's a little personal." He warns.

"I don't care, they're my family." I motion behind me.

He comes closer to me and whispers. "Are you aware that you're pregnant?"

'_Maybe they didn't hear.' _I think as my eyes go wide.

I nod my head to him, "Alright, well, be careful, Maximum." He says, before leaving again.

I turn around to face Dylan and Fang.

They'd definitely heard. I could tell by the dumbfounded expressions that they had on their faces.

"Well, that just took the fun out of it." Iggy puts in bluntly, crossing his arms.

'_It made it easier.' _was all I could think.

It was quiet for a moment before Dylan shouts, "So I wasn't going crazy!"

We all look at him.

"Well, you've been acting weird, almost like the first time this happened. And then you've been hiding something for like two weeks now, so I wondered…" He says. "But why didn't you tell us sooner?" He adds a little angrily.

I look down. I knew they'd get mad…

"Don't get mad at her, Dylan. Just let her talk." Iggy defends.

"I was just afraid." I say "Afraid that you all would be mad and that you wouldn't want him."

"Why would we be mad Max? It wasn't your fault." Fang says soothingly, and then adds curiously. "Is it a boy?"

"Well, _Dylan_ is mad… And I don't know, but I don't want to call him _it, _so I'm just saying he." I say.

"I'm only mad because you didn't tell us sooner and I don't know about Fang, but I'm fine with this." Dylan says calmly.

"I'm fine with it too; I only wish you'd said something sooner. So do you know who the father is?" Fang asks with a straight face.

"Yeah, sorry about that. No, I don't know who his dad is, yet. We'll have to find out when he's born, which I think will be sooner than Hans thought." I say, a little worried when I felt something move inside me again, like when I was in the bathroom earlier.

"What's wrong Max? What was that?" Dylan asks, scared.

"Um, I'm not sure… I've been feeling that all day, I think it's him." I say looking at my stomach, then up at him. "Wait, you felt that?"

"Oh, I guess I did. I think I can feel more than emotions now." Dylan tells us.

"That's interesting." Iggy says, before walking over to Fang, "Do you feel this?" He asks and punches Fang in the arm.

"Oww! What the fuck was that for, you ass hole!" Fang yells, aggravated.

"Iggy!" I say and punch _him _in the arm.

As both Fang and Iggy rub their arms, I look over to Dylan questioningly, "Yup, felt it." He grimaces, "Next time, just poke each other or something. That hurt."

I roll my eyes.

Well, at least the awkward part of telling them was over, thanks to Iggy's immaturity.

"So if he's already moving around in there, do you think you can have a sonogram or something done?" Iggy asks, letting go of his arm.

"I don't know, probably. How long are you normally supposed to wait?" I ask.

"I think you normally have to wait like three to four months." Iggy says. He'd been doing some research for me with Nudge on their free time, in case anyone wanted to know.

"I think it still might be too early." I say with a yawn. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat."

"Do you want to stay here or come with me?" Iggy asks.

Dylan and Fang look at me, Dylan almost begging. "I guess I'll stay here." I tell him.

"Alright, good night, you guys." Iggy says, walking out the door.

"I guess I can keep watch tonight since you did last night." I tell Dylan.

"No, I can. You should sleep Max." Fang tells me.

"Just because I'm pregnant, doesn't mean I have to be treated like I'm made out of glass." I tell him irritably.

"Yeah, it kind of does." They both say.

"Besides, I've been sleeping for, like, three days. I'm sure I won't feel tired for a while." Fang says.

"Fine." I say.

"You can sleep on my bed." He tells me, as Dylan goes off to his own bed.

There had been a curtain separating the two halves of the room and I notice now that it was pulled back so that we could all see each other.

I climb into the bed that was still very warm from Fang and pull the covers over myself.

"Good night." Dylan says to us.

"'Night." Fang says too, looking at me now from his seat next to the bed.

"G'night." I whisper to them both as Fang turns to look at the door and Dylan turns over so that he's not looking our way.

The last thing I see before falling asleep a while later, is Fang turning to look at me with a warm look on his face.

* * *

><p><strong>LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, Yall!<strong>

**~L**


	21. It's A Baby!

**A.N- Hey, just wanted to let you know that I found a website I could use so now you can see my drawing. The link is on my profile so if anyone wants to see it, well then knock yourselves out (not literally, please don't do that). Also remember that I'm not a great drawer so please no flames.**

**Thanks For reviewing!:** _BirdKidKirby,_ _lax4life22, dopeycookiemonster(_haha)_, Anita Yuan. _I'm sorry you guys, but I want the dad to be a surprise;)

* * *

><p><strong>It's A... Baby!<strong>

* * *

><p>"Max, Max, Max Max. Oh, Maaaaxiiiee!" Whoever it is pauses for a moment. "Max wake up!"<p>

"I swear to God, if you say one more word, I will punch your face in…" I say angrily into the pillow, still not bothering to see who it was.

More silence.

I felt a little bad after a while once I realized who's voice it'd been, (Yeah, even big bad Max has a conscience- other than the voice) and decided to look up. When I turned my head and opened my eyes, I saw a very offended Nudge and I instantly felt worse.

"Oh my gosh, Nudge. I'm so sorry." I tell her quickly and sit up.

"It's fine." She says with a smile. "I know you didn't mean to and I never want to get up either."

"What time is it?" I ask with a yawn, as I stretch my arms and my toes.

"It's still early, it's like eight, but I wanted to see how you were doing. You know after the whole ordeal last night." She says, wiggling her eyebrows.

I roll my eyes. "It went fine, Nudge."

"Oh, I know. Iggy already told us everything. I just wanted to talk to you. He said you could feel him; this is so exciting Max! OMG, what if you can see him soon in a sonogram thingy? You should try today, just in case! Please, please, please; with whipped cream and a cherry on top?" She squeals.

"Yeah, I guess I'll try, but only if my mom's the one who does it." I say.

"Um." I hear from the other side of bed. I turn and see that Fang was there and had been there the whole time. "If you uh- get that done- could I, maybe, be there? You know to see him?" He asks slowly, while rubbing the back of his neck.

"Of course, Fang." I say happily. He smiles and I smile back.

Then Nudge starts up talking again and we both look at her as I get up. "Ah! I can't wait until the day he's born. I mean I'll be sorry for you since you'll have to go through all of that _excruciating_ pain and all. You'll probably get stretch marks and feel like, horrible for like the whole day. It'll probably be even worse for you too since you're still so youn-"

My eyes go wide and Nudge stops when she realizes she was freaking me out and adds. "But it'll all be worth it when you see the little Fang jr. or Dylan jr. if it's his you know…" She mumbles, making Fang's face grow slightly angered.

We were in the hallway now, walking to the flock's room where the rest of the flock, Fang's gang, and my mom were waiting at.

"We can leave now, but if you want to see him we can stay longer for that, if you want." Fang says, getting his emotionless face back on once again.

I open the door and as Nudge walks in I say. "Yeah, I don't think I have a choice in that. Nudge would hate me if I didn't do this. Not that I don't want to, but you know what I mean."

We walked into the room after Nudge, and Ratchet immediately grabs Fang away from my side. He takes him to where Holden, Star, Kate, and Maya were at and started to whisper things to him as the rest of them stared at me.

Ugh. This reminds me of the first day we'd come together. Star and the others had kept looking at me, but now it was a different kind of stare.

Back then, it'd been more of a shocked (and a little angry) stare that I'd realized they gave me only when Dylan was with me.

Right now, however, Ratchet was more angered than anything. The rest of them had either blank or scared expressions on. I made a mental note to ask Fang what was up with them all.

"Hey Max. When are we leaving?" Gazzy asks impatiently.

"Hey Gazzers." I say with a smile. "We're leaving today, I'm pretty sure." I tell him, petting his hair.

"Not before seeing him!" Nudge exclaims.

"Not before seeing him…" I agree.

"See who?" Dylan asks.

"The baby, of course!" Nudge says, unbelieving that he was so oblivious.

When she says that, I see out of the corner of my eye that Star and Kate look over at us from their huddled group. Although I didn't get to see their faces, I assumed that they would have angered me.

"Oh. Max, could I see him with you?" Dylan asks cautiously.

"Yeah Dylan, I'll let both you and Fang come. Since, you know…" _Either of you could be his father…_I think to myself.

About two hours pass before my mom was able to get a room and everything set up in it, so when she came back in our room to get me, I had already gotten pretty nervous.

I'm not sure why I was so nervous though. I guess I just had hoped that I would have more time to get used to the idea, but I was now starting to realize that maybe that wouldn't be the case. That maybe this would happen a little faster than even _I _would have thought and I would soon me an actual mother that had to care for an actual baby, my baby.

"It's all set, Max." My mom tells me after opening the door.

Everyone looked at me and I started to feel self conscious, on top of anxious, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I looked behind me, expecting it to be Dylan since I had instantly calmed. However, instead of Dylan, I was faced with Fang's calm look.

I looked around and saw that Dylan was distracted with talking to Iggy, so I doubted he was controlling my emotions right now.

I looked back up to Fang and saw the corner of his mouth go up slightly, into one of his half smiles that I loved so much. I smiled back.

"Come on Dylan, let's go." I say, as I start to walk to the door behind my mom and Fang by my side.

A while later, I was laying down on a hospital bed thingy, as my mom moved a thing that was apparently called a 'wand' around my exposed lower stomach, after she had put some cold jelly thing on it.

I couldn't help to think of a fairy when my mom said it was a wand and had to suppress countless giggles already. I blame it on the nerves… So when Dylan asked if my mom could see wings, I almost lost it and had to put my hand on my mouth.

My mom was next to a little screen in front of me, looking at some weird image, as she moved the little wand around. Dylan was standing to my left, looking very intrigued at the monitor. Fang was to my right, holding my other shaking hand in his solid warm ones.

"Um…" My mom said as she moved the wand the slightest bit. "I actually don't- Well, hey, look here." She told us pointing to the left of the screen. "That's him, right there."

"Are we supposed to be seeing something? 'Cause I'm not seeing much, mom." I say, as I try to find something on the black and white screen.

"Well, it's too early to be seeing an actual baby, Max, but this is what one's supposed to look like at about four or five weeks old." She says.

_Thank God, I still have time._

"It all looks perfectly healthy. I'm not sure what you felt yesterday though, I don't think you should be feeling anything this soon."

"Well I did feel something though, right… here." I say, pointing just beside the wand.

"I just looked there and there's nothing, so maybe it was something else." She says confusedly.

"OK, well, could we stop now? It's getting kind of cold down there." I ask her.

Fang quietly snorted beside me and my mom nodded.

We left shortly after and said goodbye to my mom, since we were going to Fang's hide out. She had agreed it would be the safest place to be right now and she told me she would contact me for my next check up.

"We should get you another phone soon." Fang said, as we walked out of the hospital.

"Yeah." I say simply.

"So, how are we doing this?" Maya asks.

"It's not too far; I think we can just carry anyone who can't fly." Star clears her throat, "…Or get there on their own, by some sort of method." Iggy says.

"Thank you." Star says.

"That's fine with me." Fang says and looks back to his group for confirmation. They all nod with blank expressions.

"Alright, so who's carrying who?" I ask.

"I can carry Kate." Maya says, from beside Kate.

"I've got Ratchet." Fang adds as Ratchet puts his headphones back on.

"Holden, I can take you." Dylan says and Holden comes from behind Fang, over to Dylan.

"Alright, Fang you should lead because I'm not sure I know where exactly it was." I say.

Fang nods to me as Ratchet goes over to him. He takes his wings out as he grabs a hold of him and takes off.

Maya does the same with Kate and Dylan with Holden, as the rest of us take out our wings and take to the skies.

As we fly, I look down and see that Star is a little ahead of us down below. Well, at least I didn't have to carry her and deal with any awkward stares from her.

* * *

><p><strong>Love yall, thanks for reading. Please review and tell me if you want to know what the conversation with Ratchet and Fang was… I promise it was interesting, and that there are some clues in it for another twist;)<strong>

**~L**


	22. Kate's Take

**A.N- Alright, just to let you know, this is not what I think Ratchet is like (I don't even remember exactly what his character is like). I think he's completely OOC in this chapter, but I need to make him do this to add some drama. I know I said this would give you _clues, _but this will probably tell you _exactly_ what will happen (two things btw)… Oh well, enjoy^_^ Also, no one has said anything about the drawing… Was it that bad? Should I not finish the other?**

**Thank you kind peoples for your reviews!: **_bananaisdabomb_,_ lax4life22,_ and_ sjkjabkhnsfbkhfks(_nice name btw). Angle will turn up when Itex comes into play.

* * *

><p><strong>Kate's<strong>** Take**

* * *

><p><strong>(Kate POV)<strong>

I couldn't believe this was actually happening to me.

No, it had to be wrong…

"Kate? Are you done, can I come in?" I hear Star say from behind the bathroom's closed door.

"No, hang on." I say as I put the thing in my pocket before opening the door. "Let's go on a walk. I need to get some fresh air." I tell her casually. She nods, understanding that I had to talk to her where no one could hear.

Holden was cross-legged on the hospital bed, watching TV with the volume turned up all the way. Maya was laughing with the now present Dylan (I don't think I've seen her laugh before…). As soon as I walked out of the bathroom, Dylan looked back at me with questioning look and mouthed 'are you OK?' as Maya turned and screamed at Holden to turn the volume down. I nodded a 'yes' and looked towards the window.

Ratchet had been looking out the window and as soon as I looked, he turned to face us, "Can I come with you all?" He asked from the complete opposite side of the noisy room.

"Actually, I need to have some girl time. Is that alright?" I whisper.

"Fine, but you owe me now." Ratchet says winking. I briefly smile back, and then turn away towards the door with Star's hand in mine.

"Hang on you two. Where are you going?" Maya asks with a serious face, looking away from Holden.

"We just need to go outside for a while; we've been in here too long." Star answers.

"Before you go, you all should hear this." Dylan says.

Maya nods and motions for everyone to come closer.

"Well, Fang's with Max right now, waiting for her to wake up with Nudge. I left because he wanted to be with them for a while, and he told me to catch you all up to speed." He pauses and looks around at us, who nod in anticipation. "Max is pregnant, again." He says, and lets it sink in for a bit.

"Again?" Star asks, disbelievingly.

Dylan nods, unsure whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Maya rolls her eyes at them and the pauses. "Wait, so is it yours?" She asks a little scared.

"He could be." Dylan says with a grin. "Or he might be Fangs…" He adds, the grin sliding off his face.

"Slut!" Star coughs.

Dylan gives her a death glare that makes her swallow audibly.

I look to my left to see Ratchet's reaction and I'm a little shocked to see anger.

"So what are we gonna do now?" Holden speaks up from beside Maya, sounding like the innocent little boy he usually was.

"I guess whatever Fang thinks is best." Maya says bluntly.

"Why would he do something like that? Now we'll probably have to postpone our mission for God knows how long!" Ratchet growls.

I'm shocked even further. Is that what he thinks the child is? Nothing more than a nuisance?

"Shut up Ratchet, I'm sure Fang wouldn't have done something like that!" Maya yells. "Dylan?" She asks, less confidently now.

"No. He didn't, we didn't do it… Well, not completely on purpose anyways." He tells us. "We were like drugged or something, by Hans. It wasn't like last time though, where Max was just impregnated by Hans in some way. It was really… Us…"

"Oh." I say, understanding what he meant.

"You could have resisted." Ratchet mutters under his breath.

'He's such a hypocrite.' I think to myself.

Dylan sighs. "Whatever, I'd like to have seen you try. Just come over to the flock's room later. We're all supposed to meet up there." He says, and walks out.

We all sit there in silence, until Ratchet gets up, walking to the window and slamming his fist into the wall.

I roll my eyes. "Star, let's go." I say angrily.

Star looks up at me, confused, and then back at Maya. "We won't be gone long." She says and runs to catch up to me at the door in about five milliseconds.

…

We were walking on a side walk, a block or so away from the hospital when Star finally spoke.

"You took it?" She asks casually.

"Mhm." I answer, taking the thing out of my pocket and dump it in a metal trash can.

"So it was-"

"Yup." I say.

She doesn't say anything for a while as we keep walking.

After a while she looks up at the sky. "He didn't mean it you know. He just got a little carried away that's all, it'll be fine." She tells me with a smile.

"I hope you're right." I say, looking up to the clear blue sky as well.

…

The door opens and we all look towards it.

Nudge walks in cheerfully, with Max and Fang talking behind her.

Just as Fang walks close enough, Ratchet grabs his arm and pulls him to our group. Leaving Max with a confused and slightly peeved look on her face, but she keeps walking towards her flock.

I can't help it, I stare at her. So do the rest of us as Ratchet whisper-screams at Fang.

I'm trying to keep my face free of any emotions, but I already know that I'm failing and that I probably look like a scared little kitten.

Star grabs my hand in hers, whispering that everything will be OK.

I nod confidently and turn back to Fang.

He has a bored expression on his face as Ratchet carries on whisper-screaming at him.

"What's wrong with you man! What are we going to do now, huh? Just wait for Max? We joined forces for a reason, do you remember that Fang?" Ratchet says. "We should just leave them-"

I hear Nudge scream something about the baby and look back. Star apparently had too because she looks back as well. We turn back to our group quickly though, when we hear Fang cut Ratchet off.

"Don't!" Fang hisses, anger contorting his features, and moves closer to Ratchet. "We are _not_ leaving the flock, _especially_ right now. You hear me?" He whispers furiously. "_I _am the leader of our band; _I_ call the shots, alright? If you don't agree with what I'm doing, then leave! I'm not making you stay." He says, narrowing his dark eyes. "But if you want to be part of this group, to stop Itex and end the DG, then you have to do what _I say_. And right now, _I say _that we have to stay with Max and protect her!" He finishes, looking down on Ratchet.

"Fine." Ratchet gives up. "But we don't have much time. This is only going to drag us down." He whispers, crossing his arms.

"I don't care if it _kills _me. We're staying." Fang says with finality.

I smile at that.

I'm happy that Fang wouldn't leave Max, even when there are more important things to do. No matter the cost, he'll stay.

It might be a stupid thing to do at the moment and bite him in the butt soon, but I know he'll never regret it.

Then I look at Ratchet and see that he's still angry.

What am I going to do?

* * *

><p><strong>Love you all and I love, love, LOVE your reviews. I don't care if it's a compliment or complaint, I love them all. If there's something I could do better, explain further, or just something you want to happen please let me know and I'll do my best to work it in. Just let me now please :)<strong>

**~L**


	23. I Love You

**A.N- Fluffy chapter! Thank you reviewers, I was actually getting sick of this story and thought not many people liked it anymore, but your reviews are the thing that show me you all still want this:) and I thank you.**

**I thank your kind souls… **_BirdKidKirby_**-Yeah, Kate's pregnant;),**_ toxicmarle _**and **_Burnin'blackandblue_**. **

* * *

><p><strong>I Love You<strong>

* * *

><p>"Max?" I hear someone whisper from close by.<p>

Slowly, I opened my eyes to a dimly lit room.

The first thing I noticed was that I was sprawled out lazily on a queen sized bed. It had white sheets and a thick red comforter with a white swirly pattern.

The second thing I noticed was that Fang was about two feet away and looking down at me, beside the bed.

I slowly begin to remember that yesterday we'd taken a bunch of different routes in case we'd been followed. We hadn't gotten back to Fang's place until later that evening and by then I was completely exhausted; along with the rest of the flock, especially Maya, Fang and Dylan, since they had to carry people.

When we'd gotten home everyone had just crashed and Fang had shown me to my room, where I quickly passed out too.

I sit up on the bed now and rub my eyes. "What time is it?" I ask him, with a yawn.

"It's like twelve." He tells me.

"Why didn't you wake me up sooner Fang?" I ask him, feeling a little mad.

"You looked pretty tired and I wanted you to get more sleep." He tells me.

"Ugh, whatever." I say, quickly getting up and off the bed.

"Don't be mad Max." Fang tells me softly from behind, as I walk out of my room.

"I'm not mad. Just… Whatever." I say.

I hear him sigh from behind me as we walk into the living room/entryway thing.

"Max!" I hear Nudge scream and then I'm attacked in a hug. "Oh my gosh, this place has so many rooms! I mean when we first came here I noticed it was big and all, but did you know it has more than one floor? There's even a training room and it has this awesome treadmill that Star showed me. It's so cool. It can go like one hundred miles an hour, easy!" She takes a breath. "And they have a lot of food!" She finishes, with a huge smile on her face.

I smile back at her, loving that she was so happy. "That's great Nudge." I say, then ask, "Hey, where are Iggy and Gazzy?" looking behind her and seeing that Kate was looking at me from the kitchen.I give her a glare and she moves her head back in the kitchen.

I look back at Nudge, who'd been telling me something. "I think in the training area with Ratchet and Holden, which is where I'm going now." She says.

"Oh, OK." I say, hoping they wouldn't hurt themselves.

"Come on Max, you need to eat something." Fang tells me, walking to the kitchen.

I nod and walk into the kitchen behind him. Nudge skips down the hall and I think down some stairs.

Guess what?

Yup, that's right, Kate and Star were staring.

I couldn't, and I wouldn't, stand it anymore. "What's your problem with me? If you have something to say, just say it to my face and quit staring like creeps!" I yell, all while glaring at them.

Fang watches us for a moment, gives the two a look, and decides to let it go; turning to the fridge.

"We don't have a problem with you, what would make you think that?" Star asks innocently.

"Oh I don't know…" I say sarcastically. "Maybe the fact that you've been staring at me like there's no tomorrow, ever since we met up!" I scream and feel someone touch my arm. I turn and see that Fang was holding a sandwich out for me to take. "Thanks." I tell him calmly, and then glare back at the two girls as I take a bite.

"No we haven't!" Star tells me angrily.

"Don't even!" I shout.

"Just stop Star." Kate says from beside her. "We're sorry Max, we'll stop. Right Star?" She asks, looking at her.

"Hm!" Star grunts, and walks away with her arms crossed.

"Sorry Max." Kate tells me and leaves with Star.

Kate made me feel kind of bad. I mean sure they aggravated me, but they never really did anything, and Kate was just so kind about it. I should just let it go.

"Sorry about that, you OK?" Fang asks, sitting on a chair beside mine on the kitchen table.

"Yeah. Why?" I ask as I eat my chicken sandwich.

"You were muttering to yourself." He tells me nonchalantly.

"No I wasn't!" I say defensively.

"OK Max…" He tells me and gets up.

"Where are you going?" I ask a little too quickly.

"Just, getting something to eat." He tells me soothingly. "That wasn't much; you can get whatever else you want. We have more than enough." He offers, as he opens a cabinet.

"Maybe later." I say quietly, now busily picking at the sandwich bread.

He closes the cabinet door and walks back to the table.

I look up and see that he had one hand holding a cookie in his mouth, and the other offering the cookie package to me.

I shake my head.

He shrugs and puts the package down on the table. "Alright, I think we've dragged this out long enough. Don't you think?" He asks me as he takes a seat directly in front of me and removes the cookie away from his mouth.

I knew this was coming. I just didn't want to be the one to start the conversation, so I was a little glad he did. "Shouldn't Dylan be here too?" I ask casually, as I take a cookie. _Yum Chocolate Chip!_

"I think we should talk first." He says, which made me look up. He takes a deep breath, looks me in the eyes, and says "Max, I love you. I don't care whose baby he is, I will still stand by you no matter what and take care of you both if you let me. As long as we're here we'll have whatever you and the baby will need and I'll protect you both even if it kills me. So, what I want to know is where do we stand right now?"

I put my chin on my palm and look down at the cookie I was eating with my other hand; thinking.

There was no doubt in my mind that I loved Fang. I'd never stopped. I guess I was so mad at him _because_ I loved him so much. Because it'd hurt to see the one I loved more than anything in the world, leave me willingly.

Sure Dylan and I'd gotten pretty close these past few months, especially the past few weeks, but our love is completely different from Fang and I's. With Dylan and me, it was more of a crush. It was just me being lonely after Fang left, and I knew it. I didn't think it would last and in truth, it hasn't, because now that I have Fang again, I feel that something I used to again. Something I never really felt with Dylan. Something that I know in my heart will last.

I want to tell Fang all of this, I really do, but you know me… I just really hate all of this relationship stuff, it just makes me want to run away and cry/barf. "Are you sure you're not going to just leave again?" Is what I'm able to get out, looking at the table bitterly, putting my hand down.

He reaches out and grabs my hand, the one that's not holding a cookie, and I fight the urge to pull away and run. Instead, I look up at him.

He looks at me with his dark eyes, which were now filled with emotion. Something even _I_ have rarely seen. "I'm done with that, I promise. It hasn't done us much good and I can't stand to be away from you anymore. We can still go on with your mission to save the world and I'll be right by your side the whole time, supporting you no matter what, like old times." He tells me, not taking his eyes off mine the whole time.

"I… I don't know…" I stutter, even though on the inside I want to scream '_Yes! I love you too, that's where you stand in my mind, I want to be with you and never let you go ever again! And I want this child to be yours so bad…'_

"That's OK." He says after a few seconds. I couldn't hear the hurt in his voice, but I could defiantly see it in his eyes. "I know you can't just forgive me for what I did and honestly, I wasn't expecting you to. I just needed to tell you that." He tells me.

We don't say anything after that and a while later I decide to get up.

I keep my face expressionless as Fang gets up and puts the cookies away. When he finally turns back to me, he sees something in my eyes that I'd been trying to hide and comes closer.

I should've known I wouldn't be able to hide it from him, he knows me too well.

"Max, it's OK. It'll all be OK." He tells me, wrapping me in his warm embrace.

I knew that if I spoke that my voice would crack, but I couldn't help it. "I'm scared." I whisper, trying to hold back tears. He holds me tighter as I start to cry quietly onto his shoulder. "I can't do this, Fang. I'm only fifteen; I'm not ready for this!" I sob.

He holds me closer and rests his head lightly on top of mine and he rubs soothing circles on my back, in between my wings, waiting for me to calm down.

After a few minutes, I stopped crying. I made some hiccup-like sounds and sniffled as he started to talk. "If you really don't want to do this, Max, you don't have to. You can just wait until you're ready, or never at all if you don't want to. It's your choice."

"I'm not getting an abortion Fang." I tell him sternly.

"It wouldn't be like you." He agrees. "But that's still an option, if you really don't think you can do this." He tells me, still holding me, his chin resting on my head. Then he looks down at me and says "But you have to remember, you're not alone in this. You have me, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Dylan, and I'll make sure you have my guys too." He reassures me. "I know they'll warm up to it soon." He mutters. "And don't forget your mom and Ella. I bet Ella will be as thrilled as Nudge."

I smile into his neck and look up at his face. "Fang, I love you." I tell him.

He smiles back at me, "I love you too, Max." he says and kisses my forehead.


	24. Kate's Confessions

**A.N- OMG A TIME JUMP? Yeah, I know you were all about to kill me if I didn't do this. I think I'm finally in a place I can put one in and I think a month is good with what I'm going to do, so enjoy!:) Also thank you for getting my spirits back up for this story. Oh and I also put up another story, hope you check it out:)**

**You can thank these nice peeps for the quick update:** _Burnin'blackandblue, dopeycookiemonster, lax4life22 _**& **_FallenArchangel_

* * *

><p><strong>Kate's Confessions<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>A month later…<strong>

I'm sitting on a couch right now, watching a movie with Fang beside me on the left side of the couch. Dylan was to my right and Maya was beside him, on the right side of the couch. We could all fit because it was a four person couch by the way.

Nudge was on the ground leaning her head on my knees.

Ratchet was on another couch; with Kate's head on his chest as they both watched the TV. He hugged her to him with one arm, the other behind his head.

Star was perched on the arm rest beside Fang, and Holden was on the ground leaning his back against the front of that arm rest, watching the TV intently like everyone else.

Iggy and Gazzy had decided to leave after a few minutes, claiming they had already seen it. I'm not sure when they had though… So they went to train, or something.

We were watching _Fast Five, _yeah I know, probably not what a normal nine year-old would be allowed to watch. But you know what? We've lived through more violent things than this, so who really gives a hoot? It was like the only good DVD we had, and Gazzy had left anyway.

Fang's arm was around my waist, behind me, and I was leaning against his arm. I was absentmindedly playing with the fingers in his free hand with the two of mine. We'd gotten closer after our talk a month ago. I wasn't mad at him anymore and to be honest, I should be living my life like any day could be my last, since that really was a strong possibility, and I don't think I should be wasting my time being mad at him. I was over it now anyway.

I'd noticed that Dylan and Maya have been closer too, and was actually happy for them. I was glad that Dylan found somebody. He'd talked to me about it (since we're still friends, you know) and I had actually found what he'd said very touching and sweet.

He'd told me how Maya could actually relate to being a copy of someone and being told what you're supposed to do in life. She'd helped him realize that he was in charge of who he wanted to be; not Hans, or Itex, or anyone else. He'd told me how he still loved me, but that he'd realized it was more of a family love now, and how he feels the same way with Maya that I feel with Fang (he knows this because of his power).

Dylan, Fang and I had agreed on that: no matter who the father was, that Fang would be the 'dad' in an emotional sense. However, when he is old enough or asks, we will tell him the truth, if it wasn't actually Fang.

So all in all, life was pretty good at the moment.

A few minutes later, the credits started rolling and everyone started to move, stretching and yawning.

Fang took his arm from around me and stretched both of his arms over his head and behind him, with a yawn.

Nudge is the first to get up. "That was a really good movie! OMG, I read on some internet site that they're going to make a sixth one and I didn't even know that there were four other ones! Did you all know that? I want to watch them all if they're as good as this one! I wonder if it'll have her baby in it. I wonder what their baby will look like. That guys was so ho-"

"Nudge, honey, please…" I say rubbing my forehead as I stand up too. "You're giving me a headache sweetie."

Nudge makes a zipping motion on her mouth and walks away with pursed lips, down the hallway, off to her room.

"Good night Nudge." I say in her direction.

She runs back and gives me a quick hug. "Mmhh, mum muu(**translation- night, love you**)." She mumbles, her lips still sealed.

I smile and shake my head as she walks away again.

"I think we have some Aspirin or Tylenol." Fang tells me, getting up after me.

"No," I tell him since I hate to take medicine, especially pills. "It'll go away, I just need some sleep."

"Alright." He says. "I'll be back in a bit, I'm going to tell the guys the movie's over." He tells me and walks down the hall, where Nudge had gone a moment ago.

Star had left right after Nudge, probably to the room she and Kate shared.

Holden had turned the TV off, after he had taken the DVD out and was now walking out of the living room, talking to Fang.

Ratchet and Kate had gotten up and talked. They didn't say much and Ratchet quickly left Kate, walking down the hallway to his room like the others.

Maya was laughing at something Dylan said and then told Dylan something, making him nod with a smile and they both disappeared out of the room as well, down the hall. I'd rather not know…

The only ones left in the room now were me and Kate.

"Max?" Kate asks quietly.

"Yeah." I say as I walk into the kitchen, with her following.

"You always seem sort of busy, so I haven't been able to, but I've been meaning to talk to you about something." She says quietly, almost like she doesn't want anyone to overhear.

"Yeah, what is it?" I ask, biting into an apple I'd grabbed and sitting down in the small kitchen table.

She looks around and after a moment, speaks. "I was just wondering if you ever, um, maybe thought about not having the baby."

I pause, mid-bite and glare at her. "I thought all of us were past this-" I say until her eyes widen and she raises her hand.

"Wait, no. Not like that. I didn't mean for it to sound like that." She reassures me. "It's just that, well I have a _friend_ that might have accidently um, gotten pregnant." She whispers nervously. "And she's not really sure she wants it…"

"Is Star pregnant?" I whisper loudly, shocked.

"Shhh!" She shushes. "They might hear. And no, it's not Star." She tells me.

"Oh, OK." I breathe a sigh of relief. "Wait. Are _you_ pregnant?" I whisper cautiously.

She looks away from my eyes, down at the table. "Yes." She breathes.

My eyes widen. "Oh my gosh Kate." I gasp. "Ratchet?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Oh God. Is that why you all have been so weird around each other, does he not want it?" I ask quietly.

"No. He actually doesn't even know yet." She says looking at me again.

"You have to tell him sooner or later."

"I don't know." She says and puts her elbows on the table, and her face in her hands. "I know I shouldn't even think of this, and I wasn't raised to believe this is even an option, but I was thinking of not having this baby." She confesses.

"Oh Kate." I whisper sadly. "Do you not love him? Is that it?"

"No that's not it at all. I love him more than anything, that's why... You should have heard him when we found out you were having a baby." She tells me, looking up again.

I shake my head. "I'm sure he would have reacted differently if it was his own child. You shouldn't worry too much about that. You shouldn't make that kind of decision on someone else's opinion anyway. This will be your child, _part of_ _you_, so in the end it's your choice."

She nods, listening to my every word.

I liked Kate, she was a nice girl. She always listened to everyone, even Nudge, and actually cared about what people had to say. She was a little too easily influenced though. It wasn't too bad, she had her morals, she knew when to say no to things she was against, but she wasn't very assertive about it most of the time.

"It's his baby too, but you're right." She tells me. "I should tell Ratchet though, see where things go after that. I'm surprised I was able to keep it from him for this long, he's usually really observant." She says.

"Well if you decide to keep him we can both go through all these _joys, _together." I say sarcastically, with a smile.

She laughs. "Yeah, because this is exactly what we needed. _Two_ hormonal pregnant girls in the house." She tells me, rolling her eyes.

I go silent when I hear something from the door leading to the hall.

Kate notices my tension and she quiets as well.

We both look back to the door and a few seconds later, we see Ratchet slowly walk into the kitchen.

Kate gasps quietly and I stiffen, feeling O-so very awkward now.

* * *

><p><strong>Love yall<strong>

**~L**


	25. You Mad Bro?

**A.N- Whoa, the other day I got over 600 hits, when I normally only get like less than 100 a day. I'm so happy! XD**

**Because of multiple requests, I have decided to add this chapter, and I'd like to let you all know that requests are accepted and encouraged:) The two requests were technically different from each other (and not really requests), but I just combined them into Kate's POV on Ratchet's reaction.**

*****I changed the order of chapters 25 & 26 because someone said they looked out of order, and they really were.*****

**Arigato: **_Burnin'blackandblue, dopeycookiemonster, FallenArchangels, lax4life22, Amorette Asher_**(thank you), & **_nerdkoala_**:)**

* * *

><p><strong>You Mad Bro?<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>(Kate's POV)<strong>

"Kate?" Ratchet asked, wide eyed, right after Max hightailed it out of the kitchen.

"Did y-you hear the w-whole thing?" I stutter.

He nods.

Oh no, he's not saying anything. He really was mad like I'd thought he would be. What am I going to do? I don't really think I could actually go through with getting an abortion and killing a living thing.

Maybe the baby wasn't in me anymore and I'd had a miss carriage without even knowing.

What am I saying! That's a horrible thing to even _think_ about, and I was over here almost _hoping _for it. What's wrong with me?

"Y-you're p-pregnant?" He finally stutters back, still wide eyed. I think this is the first time I've seen him like this and actually stuttering. If Star were here, she'd probably be on all over it right now.

I nod, a blank expression now on my face. I was trying to see and calculate his every reaction, since there are a lot of ways this could go.

"W-with my c-child?"

I nod again, "You're the only one I've been with Ratchet." I tell him softly.

Right now I was guessing this would turn bad; and that he'd either punch at the walls and destroy the whole kitchen, or get mad at me, break up with me and refuse to ever see me again (possibly leaving Fang's gang while at it).

His eyes widened a little more (if that was even possible), he started to move his lips to form words, yet forgot to add sound, and I swear, I think he started to shake just a little bit.

I was looking down, flinching, getting ready for him to yell at me, when suddenly I heard a thud and looked back up.

This was so not one of my guesses at what his reaction would be, and probably not on anyone else's. Again, I thought of what Star would be doing and saying right now if she saw.

Ratchet had fallen down on the tiled kitchen floor, passed out.

I quickly made my way to his fallen form and kneeled by him. I leaned the side of my head into his chest and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard a rhythmic beat.

I got back up and looked down at him. How was I supposed to interpret_ this_ reaction?

With a sigh, I bent down again, grabbing him, and gently placed him over my shoulder.

As I walked, I thought that if anyone outside of our group were to see this right now that they would be beyond shocked. A girl like me with a petite little figure, carrying around a guy more than twice her size would make most people do a double or triple-take not believing their eyes. After all, this wasn't exactly _normal_.

I got to his room and laid him down on his bed.

I looked down at him with sad eyes, on the verge of crying. I really didn't know what to do, about the baby I mean, not Ratchet. Ratchet would be fine… I think.

I was really not expecting this kind of reaction from him and honestly had no idea what to get from it. Did this mean he was really happy? Shocked? Angry? I'm guessing one of the later and not the first.

I started to turn from him, to leave the room, when I felt a hand grab my wrist.

I looked down and saw that he was awake again, now looking at me with piercing green eyes **(A.N- IDK his eye color, but I'm making it green)**. He moved over and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down, and slowly let go of my wrist, letting his hand fall down on his lap.

"Ratchet," I say. "I'm so sorry." My voice cracked.

He just kept looking down, unaffected by my words, almost like he hadn't heard them.

"Ratchet?" I say, tears falling down my cheeks.

Still no response.

"Say something Ratchet!" I cry.

He looked up at me and saw I was crying. He still didn't say anything though and got up, unaffected by my tears.

When he gets to the door he says, "I'll be back, later.", not even caring to turn around to look at me as he does so.

After I know that he's out of earshot I fall on the floor and start crying my eyes out, curled up beside his bed.

**(Ratchet POV) **

Shit...

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- I have decided that the 100<strong>**th**** reviewer will get a whole chapter dedicated to them, they will be able to decide what happens in this chapter and pick what POV I'll write it in. I know it'll be a while till I get to 100, but I'm just giving a heads up;)**


	26. Deer?

**A.N- Arg, this site was messed up for a few days and I don't know if anyone's read my other story. There was one person who favorited it though:), but no views apparently... Sorry, just felt like venting my feelings. Also I think my beta is getting pretty busy, so I doubt I'll have my chapters checked anymore, sorry for any mistakes.**

***I changed the order of chapters 25 & 26 because someone said they looked out of order, and they really were.***

**I thank these people from the bottom of my heart: **_Laughable-CHICK, Burnin'blackandblue, and dopeycookiemonster __**(Yup, he sure did hear.)**_

* * *

><p><strong>Deer?<strong>

* * *

><p>So after I had awkwardly made my way out of the kitchen, I went to go look for Fang.<p>

He'd told me he'd be back soon, but I still hadn't seen him. So I decided to go look for him myself.

I walk into the room Gazzy and Iggy were sharing and see that Gazzy was whacking Iggy in the back of the head with a pillow. Iggy was holding up something wired, out of Gazzy's reach, with a grin on his pale face.

"What are you doing?" I ask tiredly, with a hand on my hip.

"Oh, hey Max. We're not doing anything." Iggy says, putting the thing behind his back.

"No, nothing at all." Gazzy says, quickly throwing the pillow behind him; making it hit the wall before it fell on Iggy's bed.

I roll my eyes, not even bothering to care at the moment. "Just don't blow this place up guys, OK? I'm not ready to leave here just yet." I tell them. "Have you seen Fang?" I ask.

"Yeah. He told us the movie was over, and then he said he had to check something and left." Gazzy informs me.

"Want us to help you? I don't want to go to sleep yet." Iggy says.

"No, it's fine. I got it, you all need to sleep." I say and walk out of the room. I hear a huge thud as I leave, but I don't bother turning around.

As I walk down the hallway, to the stairs, I start to think about what Kate had said earlier. She'd pretty much said she didn't want the baby if Ratchet didn't.

I don't understand that at all. Even if Dylan and Fang had both _hated _the baby, _I_ would still protect him with my life, twice over. I didn't care what anyone thought. This baby was mine after all and I had no intentions of giving him up. No matter how hard this would be, I was still going to go through with this. I doubt I would even give him up if _Fang_ asked me to_._

I guess Kate just had another point of view on this. No matter what my views were, I still respected whatever she though (I guess). I might not agree, but whatever. It was her life, not mine.

'_WHERE ARE YOU FANG!'_ I scream in my head.

Ugh, I had been walking around here for way too long for my liking, and I'm about to just scream his name until he comes.

That's when I heard some faint typing coming from inside one of the hallway doors.

This house was built pretty weird. Not only was it all underground, but it had three floors.

The first floor was the one everyone's rooms were at. It was the largest floor and also had some bathrooms, the kitchen and the living room.

The second floor was below the first and was slightly smaller than it. It had the giant training room (which was bigger than two basketball courts), a computer room, and a library (mostly medical books left from Hans).

Finally, there was a third floor. It was below the second, and was the smallest of all the floors. No one ever really came down here, except for me, right now. It was slightly dimmer than the rest of the floors and I think the roof was leaking from the light dripping sounds I heard. This place was also a little humid too and looked more underground-ish than the rest of the house, which actually looked like a normal home.

"Fang?" I asked, looking down the hallway, trying to find the source of the typing sound.

The typing stopped for a second and all you could hear was dripping, until the typing picked back up accompanied by a few clicks.

"Hello?" I asked again.

The clicks stopped again and this time a door opened not too far from me.

I tensed up until I realized it was Fang. He motioned me to come with him and then disappeared into the room once again. I walked down the short hall and followed into the room.

Once in, I saw the room was full of monitors of forest pictures on one wall, and one computer in the middle that I guessed controlled all the monitors. "What is all this?" I asked quietly.

"It's our security system." Fang tells me, sitting back down on the old swivel chiar in front of the computer.

I walked to stand behind Fang's chair and looked around in front of him. There was a green radar screen beside the computer that just had a green bar going around and around. It was all most likely things that Hans once owned.

I realized that each monitor was a view from a hidden camera outside of the big boulder that this house was under, and that each had a completely different view of outside (which was now pretty dark).

"I never noticed any cameras outside." I say stupidly.

"They're pretty well hidden." He tells me, shrugging and still looking at the screen as he clicked some stuff.

"What are you doing?" I ask, now crossing my arms and putting them on top of his chair, behind his head, and resting my chin on his shoulder.

"It said something was detected outside earlier in the history, but I can't find anything anymore. It just completely disappeared." He tells me confused.

"Maybe it was just a deer or something?" I suggest.

"No, this thing is programmed to ignore stuff like that. I mean, if it was a deer, it must have been a pretty big one…" He tells me as he closes a window and turns his head to mine. "We'll just have to be on higher alert for a while. I'll check it as often as I can."

I frown, not really loving the idea of an enemy at the moment.

He kisses my cheek and gets up. "Don't worry about it too much though. I doubt it was anything important."

I get up too and wonder if I should tell him about the Kate thing.

"How are you feeling, head still hurt?" He asks.

I decide that the Kate thing really isn't for me to share so I let it go and say, "No, that went away.", not mentioning that I was really tired now and that my feet hurt in case I sounded even needier than I already was.

"That's good." He tells me, holding my hand and kissing my forehead.

"Mhm." I agree with a smile.

"Let's go to bed, I bet you're tired." He says, now leading us out the door and down the hall.

It was quiet until we got to the stairs and Fang asks, "So when was your mom supposed to call for the check up thing?", looking down at me.

I look up at him and put my hand to my stomach. "I don't remember if she said something specific, do you?" I ask.

"No, but maybe we should contact her soon." He says, looking down at my stomach.

I shrug.

We were at my door now and Fang had told me good night. "Night." Answer and give him a peck on the lips.

I walk into my room and instantly change into by PJs- a tank top and sweat pants.

After I'd pulled the tank top down, over my abdomen, I realized just how big my stomach was getting.

It wasn't huge or anything, but others would be able to tell now. Or think that I'd just eaten a lot… either one of those…

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Sorry for the weird cut off; it was getting long.<strong>

**Love yall**

**~L**


	27. Night Light

**A.N- I guess that the 100****th**** reviewer is closer than I thought! Well I'll probably get my hundredth review in this chapter or the next. So if you are the hundredth reviewer and know it, then please include what you want the chapter to be about and the POV of it. You could also just PM me instead (after the review) or with any details you would like to add:) If you don't know you are: It's ok, I'll let you know:)**

**BTW after the chapter one of you outlines, things will start to happen again. Not telling you all what yet though…**

**Muchas Gracias!: **_BirdKidKirby, dopeycookiemonster, LiveLaughHungerGames333, Burnin'blackandblue, _**&**_ star1321_**:)**

* * *

><p><strong>Night Light<strong>

* * *

><p>I lay down on my bed, facing up with my hand tracing patterns on my stomach. Until about half an hour later; when my wings started to bother me too much and I had to move to my side.<p>

I was thinking of when I should call my mom. I honestly didn't see the point in those check-up things…

I only had one so far and I really didn't care much for getting another. I would rather see him when he's born and not in some wired image where he looked like one of those black and white pictures a therapist makes you decipher. I mean sure, my mom could see if there was a problem earlier on and try to fix it, but back at the hospital she'd told me that if something were to be an issue with him, that there would be little she could do to help.

My mom had told me that it'd been hard to see into the womb and that she'd had to use a stronger frequency to see him. She'd said that there was some type of thick barrier, different from the normal one, around the fetus. It was very strong and flexible, but she'd never seen anything like it before (neither on humans or birds).

She'd told me it almost looked like the wound was bordered with what eggs are made of, which didn't surprise us too much since we're part bird you know... I was just hoping that I wouldn't have to give birth to an egg-baby; it was already bad enough I had to give birth in the first place. I _so_ didn't want to lay an egg…

…

And this is why I shouldn't have free time to think… Now I had freaked myself out to the point that I couldn't close my eyes anymore.

I take the covers off of myself and get off the bed. As I make my way to the door (in the pitch black, might I add), I stub my toe on something hard, "Dimmit!" I hiss. As I hop around on one foot.

I accidently trip over something and fall. "Ahh!" I exclaim.

Since the door was so close, I managed to stop myself from falling by slamming my hand on it. I ended up hitting my forehead against it too since I didn't know it _was_ so close.

"Ow…" I breath.

God, when I say this place is pitch black, I really mean _pitch black. _Since we were underground and there was no light coming in from any window (since you know, we don't have 'em) and even with my raptor vision I still needed a small source of light to see. I wasn't Iggy or Dylan, who actually had night vision, after all.

Anyway, after my humiliating little scene, I opened the door and saw that a few of the bedroom lights were on, and some doors were open while the rest started to open.

Nudge's room was right next to mine and so she was the first one to have heard. "Are you OK Max? What was that? It sounded like… Well I don't know what exactly, but it was loud." She says, poking her head out of the room.

I see that everyone was peeking out of their rooms now, most of them looked really tired and like I'd woken them up. I saw that Gazzy was yawning and rubbing his eye.

"Sorry." I say. "I kind of tripped."

They all nod, not wanting any further explanation, seeing that I was OK, and went back into their rooms.

I let out a sigh. I should really get a night light or something…

And now I can't even remember why I'd come out here in the first place, that's just great.

I walk down the hall, looking at my feet as I think: _'I remember I couldn't sleep. Did I need to use the bathroom? Was I hungry?'_ Until I see someone's feet and I stop, running into them just a little bit.

"You OK?" Fang asks, in his usual quiet voice.

I look up at him. "Yeah, just tripped."

He shakes his head with a smile.

"Don't laugh." I tell him angrily.

"Did I laugh?" He asks rhetorically, still smiling.

"You're smiling, same thing for you. And in my defense, it was really dark in my room."

"Sure Max. So why are you up anyway? Couldn't sleep?" He asks, teasing smile now gone from his face.

"Nope." I answer. Then I remembered what I'd wanted to do. "Wanna fly with me?"

He shrugs.

I'm taking that as a yes.

We walk further down the hall and eventually we get to the living room, where the main exit door was.

Fang had programmed all of the flock's hand prints into the security system, which came in handy when the flock wanted to go out for a flight and Fang's gang didn't.

Knowing that, I placed my hand beside the door frame and let the blue light scan over it.

You might be thinking that it's a little weird to have to get your hand scanned from the inside of the house, and I do too. It's only at night though, and Fang had told us it was for security reasons so I didn't object.

I liked having at least a little hope of safety. I knew it wouldn't stop The School, The Doomsday Group, Hans, (You know what? There're too many people to list that are after us, so I'll just give them the generic name of 'The Bad Guys'. How's that sound? Yeah I know, best name ever right?... Shut up who asked you!) but at least it would slow them down.

We were outside now and I just stood there for a while, feeling the cool night breeze blowing through the feathers on my extended wings. It felt like I hadn't been out in so long that I almost forgot I had wings and could fly.

After a few minutes of that, I suddenly jumped up into the night sky, with my right wing man following shortly.

**(Fang POV)**

I couldn't help but think of just how beautiful Max was, especially right now; with her hair blowing slightly back from the light breeze, the white moon light streaming on her perfect face, even the angle of her wings behind her back looked beautiful.

She made me feel nice inside, almost like life was actually worth living, as long as I had _her_. Especially right now, when her face looked almost relaxed. Like she'd forgotten all of her worries, just for now at least, and like she was actually free.

I wish that she could feel like this all the time. I wish the flock could, and my guys too. I wish that all of us mutants could feel like that, actually. But I know that isn't possible. Not without our help anyway.

I also know that what I was thinking just then was very un-Fang-like and a little complain-y, but who cares? They're my thoughts. I can think whatever I want. Don't judge.

Snapping back to reality, I felt a strong breeze, saw Max taking off and followed her quickly. Just like old times.

* * *

><p><strong>I love yall!<strong>

**~L**


	28. Kicks

**A.N- Time for baby names again! Ok so I'm pretty much telling you the baby's power in this chapter and I was looking for baby names and came across 'Aaryan' (Ari-en). Aaryan means "utmost strength", and it also sounds like Ari. Then there's 'Zaila' (Zay-la), which means "might" or "power(ful)". The other possibilities are: Arianna (for Ari), Nikki (for Fang/Nick), Sorin (for flight, since they fly), Light (for being one of the only good things right now for them, like a symbol of hope) or you can review with a name and its meaning (and don't forget to suggest a name for Kate and Ratchet's baby too). I'll be putting up a poll for this soon, so be sure to vote.**

**I thank there peeps from the heart of my bottom:)- **_nerdkoala_**,**_ dopeycookiemonster_**,**_ FallenArchangels_**, &**_ LOVE HATE DUH_

* * *

><p><strong>Kicks<strong>

* * *

><p>"You're getting slow, Fang." I say just loud enough for him to hear.<p>

We didn't want to go any further than a mile in case something went wrong. Which, let's face it, always does.

It was a cool February night, tonight. It was around twenty-five degrees (f), which was the norm here in Colorado and absolutely perfect for us.

I know that might be cold for you, but the heat from flying plus our higher-than-a-human body temperatures summed this night up as being just wonderful right now.

I land inside a small clearing in the forest and look up, waiting for Fang to catch up.

"I'm not getting slow, you're just cheating and using your powers." He tells me, as he lands a few meters away.

I walk to him and hug him around the waist as I say, "I wasn't using my powers, Fangy." teasingly.

"Well you're just a faster flyer in general. Maxi." He says, hugging me back.

I laugh as he kisses my head.

"So are you tired yet?" He asks, taking my hand and walking closer to the middle of the clearing.

"A little." I admit. "I don't want to go back yet though." I say, as he leads me.

"Alright, but we're not staying out here all night." He tells me as he sits down.

"I think it's a little too late for that, it's already past one." I say, joining him on the cool grass below.

"Well I meant let's not fall asleep here." He clears up.

I nod in agreement. It was actually starting to feel cooler now, after the warmth from our flight was wearing off. I was starting to feel really grateful that I actually brought a sweatshirt, and so I zip it up.

Fang lays back and puts his arms behind his head for support and I decide to join him. So I lay back with him, and put my head on his warm chest. I could smell his scent now and realized just how much I loved that smell, just because it was his.

Now before you go calling me a weirdo for sniffing people, I just want to say that, for the record he was right_ there,_ under my _nose_, and I can't just stop breathing, OK?

"So, Max?"

"Yes, Fangles?"

He breaths out a small chuckle kind of thing, "Have you thought of names yet?"

I pause. "For that baby? Yeah I guess I thought of a few."

He waits.

"There's Arianna or Nikki for a girl, and Sorin or Light if it's a boy. Well, I think light could be used for both, actually. I just can't really think of any- OH KAY!" I say as I sit up and clutch my stomach.

"What's wrong Max?" He asks worriedly, sitting up quickly.

I keep my hand on my stomach and my eyes widen.

I quickly snatch Fang's hand from behind me and put it on my stomach so he'd feel too; all without saying a word.

"Whoa." He breaths and scoots closer.

"Yup that's him. He's been kicking all day, but this is the first time I felt him move with my hand."

He smiles and looks down at me. Then we both feel him kick again and he takes his hand away. "This kid's strong Max." He comments, sounding a little worried.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. My stomach's been hurting all day because of it."

He pauses and looks down at my stomach again. "Can I?" He asks, holding the end of my shirt and sweatshirt with his hand, gently.

"Sure." I say, raising an eyebrow in question.

He holds it up and with the moon light you could faintly see dark patches all around where the baby was kicking.

"Oh my God…" I gasp.

"Shit." Fang breaths.

"Is that from him?" I ask and lightly touch one of the bigger spots.

Fang shrugs. "Most likely." He tells me, now looking at what I was doing.

I put a little bit of pressure on that spot and wince. "Yup, they're bruises." I conclude and take my hand away.

He puts his hand back on my stomach and starts to lightly feel it. "Is this his foot?" He asks, twisting his head a little.

I look down and put my hand by his. He moves his hand on top of mine and guides it to where his was. I could feel something really small and slender. "Might be." I say. "I wonder if he can hear us." I whisper.

Fang shrugs. He takes his hand away and looks up to the starry sky. "He's developing faster than I thought he would." He sighs.

I don't take my eyes away from my stomach and start to feel what we think is his foot. He moves around again and I laugh. Fang looks down at me, "He's ticklish." I explain, with a smile. Then he kicks again and I wince, closing one eye. "Fuck…"

Fang takes my hand with his, away from my stomach. "Maybe you shouldn't touch him." He suggests, with worry in his eyes.

I nod and put my hand down. That's when we hear something in the surrounding shrubbery.

Fang jumps up and stands in front of me, facing the sound. "Who's there?" He shouts.

There's some more shuffling and then Ratchet comes out from behind some trees. "Chill dude, it's just me." He says.

"How long have you been there?" I ask as I see Fang's shoulders relax.

"Since just now. I was walking around, trying to get back home, and I heard you all so I've been walking here for a few minutes." He says as he walks closer.

"So you heard us?" I ask.

"Ever since you landed." Ratchet answers. "So you can feel him now?"

"Yeah." I answer calmly. I could see that Fang was still a little tense by the way he was looking at Ratchet, but I didn't really care.

I already knew how Ratchet was the one who liked the idea of me being pregnant the least, but I also knew the situation he was in right now. And since he was part of Fang's gang, and pretty much part of my flock for the time being, I didn't want to make it any worse by saying something that makes Fang go off on Ratchet.

But it still surprised me a little when Ratchet says, "I'm really sorry for the way I acted. Especially to you Max, with all the things I said. I know you all weren't really in control of the situation, but I was…"

My eyes widen. Was He going to tell Fang about Kate?

"What?" Fang asks.

Ratchet looks down at me, then back at Fang. "Max didn't tell you, did she?"

Fang looks down at me and I look at Ratchet. "I didn't think I should interfere. It's yours and Kate's business." I explain.

"Yeah, thanks for that." He tells me and then looks at Fang. "Well you see…" He scratches the back of his head with his hand. "…Kate's kind of pregnant." He says.

Fang's eyes widen.

**(Fang POV)**

My God! The dude's only known Kate for a few months and he's already- pardon my French, but- knocked her up? I mean I know this might not even be my kid, but at least I've known Max for a long time… Well actually I've known her my whole life. Not saying that it's Ok, since we're still only fifteen, but we have a longer standing relationship.

"Since when?" I ask.

"Well I found out today, but I'm pretty sure since like, maybe a month before we joined the flock."

"Eww." Max teases from below.

"Don't even; you did the same thing." Ratchet says, smiling.

"I was just kidding, and I wasn't exactly _in control_ as you put it." Max teases again.

Ratchet rolls his eyes. Then his head snaps up and he holds his hand up to silence us.

We all stay frozen for a moment until Ratchet asks. "Did you all hear that?"

"No. What was it?" I ask quietly and hold my hand down for Max to take, which she does immediately.

I help Max up as Ratchet talks. "I'm not sure. Maybe a twig snapping? Not more than two hundred meters in that direction." He says lowly, pointing away from our hideout.

"Take your wings out." I tell Max, in a whisper.

She does slowly, so as not to make a sound. I do the same as Ratchet and I both slowly walk closer to the edge of the clearing, to where the sound came from.

We're a few steps away from the edge when I hear something. "Does that sound like slithering to you?" I whisper to Ratchet.

"Yeah." He answers, sounding confused. "Whoa, what is that!" He shouts and starts to back up quickly, shoving me back with his arm as well.

"They look like giant lizards! Max! Fly!" I scream as I grab Ratchet from under his arms and flap as hard as I can.

By now the lizard things were only about ten meters away. They were quick little buggers.

As I finally manage to get us airborne, the lizard things start to jump up with their hind legs and snap at our feet with razor sharp teeth-filled mouths.

Ratchet starts kicking at one that got a hold of his foot. He kicks one of its red beady eyes, which makes it finally let go and fall to the ground with a heavy thud.

There were about twenty or thirty of them and it didn't look like any more would be coming out of the forest any time soon. Thank God for that.

"Can they fly?" I shout over the high-altitude wind, as I hover beside Max.

"I don't think so!" Ratchet answers, just as we all see a few of them snap their wings out. "Never mind!" He shouts quickly.

Their wings were like bat's wings and not feathery like ours, from what I could see at least. They looked like lizards with dragon wings and varied from four to five feet. The ones with wings looked a little shorter and smaller than the ones who stayed on the ground, which were now slithering toward where our hideout was.

"Max, use your super speed to go back and get everyone out! Now!" I shout.

She nods and shoots away, sending a quick gush of air my way on accident.

"What are we gonna do Fang?" Ratchet yells at me, starting to freak out slightly, at the fact that the flying lizard things were getting closer and closer.

"We follow Max." I answer as I race off, behind her. "And if they get close enough, we take them out."

**(Max POV)**

In only about ten seconds, I'm there. I land on top of one of the secret doors under the leaves and open it quickly. We don't use these to get in because it's impossible to reposition the leaves once we're in, but it's the quickest way in and the closest.

I jump down the ladder and surprisingly don't hurt myself. Then I race down the tunnel and place my hand on the scanner. Once the door opens, I start screaming "Everyone wake up!" as I run down the hall, pounding on all of the doors.

They all start to open quickly and everyone runs out into the hall all speaking at once. A chorus of "What", "What's wrong?", "What's going on?" and "Is everyone OK?"

"Some lizard things are on their way here! We need to leave as quickly as possible, right now! Don't take anything with you that you don't absolutely need!" I shout as I race to the door I came in from. A few second later I see that everyone is coming and I start running out.

When we all get outside I start to take charge again. "Those of you who fly, take the person you usually take. Star you're with me. You can't run this time; we don't know where to go yet."

Everyone nods along with Star, who doesn't object.

The Flock and Maya take their wings out. I take Star, Maya takes Kate, and Dylan takes Holden. Iggy, Nudge and Gazzy are already up in the air when the rest of us finally take off.

"Where's Fang?" Maya asks, coming closer to me.

"I don't know. Oh wait, there!" I say, pointing with my nose.

I hear him shouting something but can't quite figure out what.

"What'd he say?" Maya asks.

"I don't know." I say.

He's closer now and shouts, once again. "Go!"

We all hear him this time and fly away.

**Four hours later…**

We had started to fly in a V about an hour after we started. With me in the lead. Iggy, Gazzy and Fang behind me on the left. Nudge, Dylan and Maya behind me on the right.

Those lizard things had speed, I'd give them that. They had no stamina however, and we'd lost them after maybe ten minutes.

I'd given Star to Iggy about two hours ago because I couldn't carry her anymore, but I was still feeling exhausted. I remember that we'd flown sixteen hours straight once, but it's only been four and I already feel as exhausted as I did then.

"Max, do you want to take a break? I can hear you breathing heavy over the wind." Nudge tells me.

"No, Ih-m, fi-hne." I breath.

"We're going down everyone!" Dylan shouts casually.

Everyone breaks away and goes down, me along with them. We land in a forest just outside some small town. It was pretty bright now, and so probably a good idea to land anyway.

When we landed Star asked "Where are we?"

"I'm pretty sure somewhere in New Mexico." I say, since I knew I'd led us south from Colorado.

Hey, I might not be very school smart, but I know my directions and _most_ of the states.

"So are we just going to be on the run again?" Gazzy asks.

"For the time being." I tell him, sadly.

It's quiet for a moment until Kate says. "Well, I might as well tell the rest of you who don't know already: I'm pregnant."

"Well that wasn't random at all." Iggy states bluntly.

"That's just great! We're on the run; out in the wilderness, with not one, but two, pregnant teenagers! Is anyone else pregnant? Anyone?" Maya screams.

Everyone else just stays quiet and looks at Maya. Dylan walks over to her and touches her shoulder, instantly gaining an angry look on his face, but leaving Maya happy looking.

"Thanks Dylan. Sorry, guys." She says, "Just a little crabby from having to fly without a full night's sleep."

Everyone shrugs it off and disperses.

Well this was great. We were being chased again by God knows who, with a new type of mutant weapon that was even worse looking than Erasers. And on top of all that, we had two expecting mothers…

Oh, how I hate my life…

* * *

><p><strong>Even though Max hates her life, I still love <em>you.<em>**

**~L**


	29. Voice?

**A.N- I put the poll up, so please vote for baby names! I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet but: I already have this whole story pretty much planed out, I just have to do all of the details to get it there. So I already know what the baby will be, look like, and their powers, but I still want to keep everyone guessing;) I also already know what I'm doing about Itex, the Doomsday Group, the voice, Hans and of course, Angel.**

**Thank you and please vote, I want your opinion to count: **_nerdkoala_** (funny you should ask. No, I actually didn't, but when I was reading it before I posted it, I noticed that it is a lot like Twilight), **_MockingJayBirds_**:), **_dopeycookiemonster _**(he sure is), **_lax4life22_**(you are the 100th reviewer, do you want a chapter?), **_Burnin'blackandblue_** (hahah, I love how random those names are XD), & **_LOVE HATE DUH_**:)**

* * *

><p><strong>Voice?<strong>

* * *

><p>When I opened my eyes the next morning I realized that Fang was supposed to have woken me up by now. He probably wanted me to sleep more. That idiot…<p>

My back was against a tree, Gazzy had his head on my lap and Nudge was curled up to my right. I tried to get up as slowly and carefully as I could, placing Gazzy's head down gently onto the grassy floor below.

I tip-toed over them and then finally looked forward. I saw that Fang wasn't sitting against the tree in front of mine, like he was before I fell asleep. I also saw that Iggy was awake and looking at me. He was also sitting against Fang's tree.

I smiled and started towards him, when my foot caught on something and tripped me up.

My hand flew out and caught a nearby tree and as I was standing up again, Fang suddenly materialized next to me. "Are you alright?" He said quietly, looking a bit startled.

I nodded, taking my hand away from the tree's bark. I looked at it and see that I'd scrapped it some, but it wasn't too bad.

"Wow, Max, you're getting really clumsy." Iggy joked, earning a glare from me.

"I'm sorry I didn't see Fang's invisible legs." I say sarcastically.

Iggy laughed, patting the space between where him and Fang were sitting, encouraging me to take a seat and join them.

I did and Fang yawned next to me. "Were you asleep? Oh my gosh, did I wake you up Fang?" I ask worriedly. "I'm so sorry."

He shook his head. "It's fine, it was time for me to get up anyway."

"Well, I'm still sorry that I tripped over your legs." I said and leaned my head on his solid shoulder.

"Don't worry about it." He told me, leaning his head on top of mine.

Iggy makes a gagging noise.

"Oh, shut-up Iggy." I said, softly kicking his leg with my foot.

I looked forward to the tree I had slept by. I saw Nudge and Gazzy sleeping peacefully in front of my tree. To the left of that tree, Dylan was sleeping with his back against another tree, and Maya's head resting on his lap. He had one hand on her head; meaning he probably fell asleep stroking her hair. In front of them all was Holden, he was lying on his back; his head on a backpack he had used as a pillow. Finally, Star and Kate were asleep with their heads leaning against each other, on the tree to our right. Ratchet though, was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Ratchet?" I asked softly.

"When Fang put me on guard duty, Ratchet woke up too and said he needed to do something." Iggy tells me.

"How long ago was that?" I ask.

"Hm… Maybe half an hour. Forty minutes?" He says, unsure himself.

"Do you think he's OK? What if they followed us without us knowing, and were just waiting for someone to stray away." I say nervously.

"Max, don't freak just yet. I'll go look for him." Fang says calmly.

"You want me to come with?" Iggy asks.

"No. You stay here and watch over the others." Fang says, getting up.

"You're not going alone Fang." I say. "I'll go with you, if you won't take Iggy."

Fang sighs. He looks at us and seems to be thinking something over. "Fine. Max, let's go." He says a moment later.

I nod and get up as well.

About an hour later, we were still looking around the forest. We still had no clues of Ratchet's whereabouts, and I was getting more worried by the second. Also, I was starving, which wasn't really making the baby happy either.

He'd been kicking me softly for the past two minutes and I was starting to get really annoyed. It didn't really hurt much, but it felt like a fly that just wouldn't go away. I mean I don't think he's a pest; he's just making me uncomfortable.

"What's wrong Max?" Fang asks, looking back to where I was standing.

"I don't want to walk anymore." I whisper, hating the fact that I was sounding so needy again.

"Oh. Well I was going to say that we should start going back anyway. I don't think he's here, or else he would have answered us by now."

I nod.

Even though we were going to walk back, which meant I could sit down, I still didn't want to go. But I just sucked it up and started walking.

_'We'll have to meet soon Max.' _I heard.

_'Voice!'_ I thought loudly, if that's even possible. _'What are you talking about?'_ I ask and stop walking.

_'We'll be meeting soon Maximum. For the baby.' _It says, and then I feel it's presence leaving my head.

"What?" I scream. "The hell we're not!"

Fang looks at me with a questioning face. Then, in realization, says "Voice?"

"Yeah, and it says that we'll be meeting soon." I say angrily.

"So we'll be able to see who the voice is? Why are you mad about that?"

"It said 'for the baby'." I quote.

He scowls, "The hell it's not." He agrees.

"I wonder if the Voice was the one who sent the lizards." I wonder out loud as we walk.

Fang shrugs.

When we were close to camp, we heard something from behind us. Both Fang and I turn around and listen.

A few seconds later we heard the noises getting closer until we saw Ratchet in the distance. I breathed a sigh of relief and we waited.

A few moments later, Ratchet was by us and trying to catch his breath.

"Are they here?" Fang asks.

"The lizards, no. Some weird people, yes." He tells us.

"Voice?" I say, panicking.

Ratchet looks at me confused. "What?" He asks, his breathing now calmer.

"What happened?" Fang asks, changing the subject back to what was important.

Ratchet look at Fang, "This morning, I was going back to camp and I heard someone calling me, so I went to see who it was. It was these people that said they needed to see us all, especially Max. They didn't forces me or threaten me so I think we should see what they wanted."

Fang looks at me, as if asking 'Should we?'

I nod, "Let's go get the others."

* * *

><p><strong>LOVE YOU!<strong>

**~L**


	30. Good Itex?

**A.N- Sorry for a kind of crappy chapter, but it just took so long that I don't want to keep you all waiting any longer; and anyways, you get to actually meet the voice now! So please vote and yada, yada, yada…**

**Thank to:**_ LOVE HATE DUH, Maximumridelover14_**(I've already said this: I have the story planned out and I won't change who's baby it is (there's only one person out there who knows the father, not including myself); and Kate's baby will be important in my sequel. But thank you for that and I'll probably be making another story in the future all about Mylan, just for you.)**_, Burnin'blackandblue, star1321 _**(Thanks)**_, MockingJayBirds _**(You actually already got to meet 'the voice' in earlier chapters, but yes, the flock will meet them in this one)**_, dopeycookiemonster, _**& **_Team-Sooric-Delena._

* * *

><p><strong>Good Itex?<strong>

* * *

><p>"Everyone ready?" I ask.<p>

They all nod with some 'Yup's here and there.

"Hey Iggy, grab that last bag to your right, would you?" I add quickly.

Iggy looks down and grabs it, then tosses it to me and spreads his wings like the rest of the flock.

"We'll put all of it up in a tree, to get back later. That way if this gets ugly, our hands will be free." I tell everyone.

More nods around the camp.

"OK now, Ratchet, lead the way!" I say.

He nods and Fang grabs him from under the arms. We were going to fly there because it'd be faster.

As everyone started to go to their designated flyers, I flew up into a tree and stashed all of our things; which wasn't much. Then I jumped up from the top of that tree and joined the others, which earned me a kick to the stomach by a non-too-appreciative passenger.

Ratchet had told us what happened when we got to camp, in more detail. He'd said that he'd been ready to fight whoever these people were, but then realized that they'd really only wanted to talk to him. So he'd calmed down and listened. They'd said that they were part of Itex; the good part that was allied with Jeb. They told Ratchet to get us and he agreed, telling them to stay put. He walked back to camp slowly and listened closely to any sounds behind him and noticed that they were staying true to their word, and actually waiting. So to Ratchet, they were _almost_ trustworthy.

"Down there!" Ratchet tells Fang, pointing downward at a clump of trees.

We all made our descend; me landing last, in front of them all. Fang and Dylan quickly came forward to my left and to my right, without being asked.

Four people stood in front of us; three men and one woman. "Hello Max," Said one of the men. "It's nice to finally meet you all in person. My name is Jake. This is Gavin, Chris, and Livy." He said, gesturing to the others.

The man who spoke was in his mid or late twenties, average height, average weight, light brown hair, and brown eyes. He looked to be the oldest and the leader by the way he stood calmly in front of the other three, and since he was the one who spoke first.

The other man (or should I say boy), Gavin, was around our age; pretty young actually, maybe fourteen. His body was a lot like Iggy's and Fang's used to be, before they got some muscle into them, he was as skinny as a bean pole and pretty tall too. His skin was a shade lighter than Nudge's, his hair was a dark gray, and his eyes were a pretty gray-blue color that really stood out from his skin (did I really just think that?).

The last man, Chris, was in his early twenties and had a strange reddish tint to his hair. He was kind of short compared to the rest of us, but would be a normal height for a human. He had almost scary looking black eyes that looked a lot, yet nothing at all, like Fang's. His eyes were very dark, but unlike Fang's, the blackness didn't stop at the iris, it went all around the eyeball from what I could see. He was also pretty pale.

Beside Chris was the woman, Livy. She was also in her early twenties and looked a lot like the man beside her, Chris. She was short, had those scary black eyes, and had the same pale skin tone too. The only big difference was the fact that her hair had a blue-ish tint, instead of Chris's red-ish one.

"Who the hell are you, how do you know my name, and how did you know where to find us?" I ask, un-amused of his kind smile.

He didn't seem surprised by my awesome manners, and answered all of my questions with one simple statement. "I'm the voice."

"Oh, where's the fun in that Jake?" Livy spoke up from the side.

"I thought we were going to let her guess!" Chris shouts.

"Do you really want her to get even more pissed at us? I think we've made her guess enough already!" Jake tells them, looking back.

All the while, I'm gaping in front of them.

Livy looks up at me and gets a worried look on her face. "Max, are you OK?" She shouts, walking forward. "Is it the baby?"

My eyes widen and I start to back up.

"Oh I'm sorry." She says and stops in her tracks, right as Fang and Dylan took a step forward.

"Livy, get back here!" Jake tells her. When Livy walks back to him, he starts to speak angrily at her, "You know as well as I do how we'll have to earn their trust. You know how hard it is to _get_ that trust and you are _not_ making it any easier by invading their space. And with Max being in the condition she is now, they'll all be even more cautious."

I blush slightly.

"I don't think they appreciate you talking about them like they're not here." Gavin finally speaks up.

"The kid's right, and if you don't start explaining why it is that you wanted us, _right_ now, then we're out of here." I shout.

"Right. Sorry Maximum. Well we have a lot to explain, which can't be overheard. So I was thinking that maybe you'd be willing to come with us, to a more private place where we can tell you everything." Jake says.

I snort. "You're kidding right?" I ask, almost laughing. "How do I know you're not just going to take us and experiment on us like Itex has been trying to do?"

Jake sighs. "I knew this would be difficult. Oh how I wish you still had a mind reader." He says, shaking his head. He looks up, more serious now. "Max, please. We don't have time for this. We need to get the trackers out of all of you and fast. I'll do anything you ask me to, to earn your trust. Just come with us, all of you."

My eyes widen at his words. Mind reader? Angle? Tracker?

My eyes tear up a little, but I stop it before anyone has a chance to see. "Dylan, I know it's not reading they're mind, but can you tell if someone is lying?" I ask, in my leader voice.

"Yeah, I can tell if someone's lying, I would have to be in contact with that guy though. I don't know his vibe." Dylan tells me.

I nod to Jake and Dylan moves forward.

Jake walks a few steps closer, eager to prove that he's telling the truth.

Next to Dylan, Jake looked really short. At more than a foot shorter than him, Jake looked like a midget. But since Dylan was pretty tall, I guess it wasn't much.

Dylan reached his hand out, and made contact with Jake's arm. "Alright, his mood's pretty calm, now you have to ask him something."

"Are you really the voice?" I ask.

"Yes." Jake says calmly.

"Truth." Dylan tells me.

It was one thing to hear it from this stranger, but now that it was proven true by Dylan I felt different somehow. Like I almost liked the mystery, and now that it was gone, so was the fun. "Alright, are you really with Jeb?" I ask next.

"Yes, and we're a good part of Itex."

"Truth."

I nod. Well I wasn't going to doubt Dylan's judgment. So far, he'd always been right when reading people's emotions, and he knew how people's emotions changed when they were lying.

"Fine, we'll go with you. But just remember that if you try anything, with any of us, I won't hesitate to kill you." I say darkly.

They all nod. Livy and Chris looking a little scared.

Jake turns around, to walk into the woods. "You should get everything you stashed. You'll probably be with us for a while." He says, still facing the trees.

"How'd you know we stashed stuff?" I ask.

"Last time I made contact with you, as the voice, I saw that you'd brought things with you. And knowing you, I would guess that you hid them. In case they got in the way." He tells me.

"Whatever." I say, unimpressed. "You all can go ahead, I'll be right back." I say and spread my wings.

The four of them nod and walk into the woods.

"Go with them, I'll just take a few seconds." I tell the flock (Which now includes Fang's gang by the way).

They all nod and walk to where the people had gone; except for Fang. "I'll wait here for you." He tells me.

I nod and go up into the air, avoiding all if the branches on my way up.

When I'm up in the sky I fly normally for a few seconds, before using my power and shooting away. It only takes a few seconds to fly what had taken us a few minutes to do with normal flying, just a short while ago.

When I get into the tree with our things, I thank God that they all packed super light and I only had to carry about eight or ten pounds. I quickly snatch everything up and shoot into the air again.

I'd only been gone for maybe half a minute and when I got back, Fang was still there, waiting.

"Let me carry some of it." He says, holding out a hand.

"Here," I say and just when Fang grabs half of the bags, the baby kicks me. "Fuck." I whisper.

"You OK?" Fang asks, over my hunched form. "Did he kick you again?"

"Yeah, and yeah." I say as I straighten back up. "I don't think he likes flying very much." Fang looks like he's about to say something, but I cut him off. "I'm fine, we have to go. They're all waiting for us." I say and start walking.

When we get to where the others are, we see an aircraft thing that I guess we were all supposed to travel in. It was pretty big and I was a little curious as to how they fit it in this small clearing.

Once we're in, we all take a seat inside of the triangular aircraft. The seats were all along the sides and we actually all fit, with more room to spare than I would have thought possible.

"Alright, I will tell you our whole story. The others can tell you their story if you wish, but I have to tell you about the voice first and Dylan can see if I lie about anything." Jake says.

"Fine." I say.

* * *

><p><strong>LOVE YOU:D<strong>

**~L**


	31. Damn It Dylan!

**A.N- I had no idea how to tell the voice's story while still telling my actual story, so I hope you don't get too bored by this chapter. Also, sorry for all mistakes you might find. This chapter is so long that I really don't want to look it over again…**

**Gracias: **_MockingJayBirds, Burnin'blackandblue, dopeycookiemonster, lax4life22, MAX-FANG-FAX _**(haha)**_, toxicmarley, LOVE HATE DUH, _**&**_ Drakefire_**. **

* * *

><p><strong>Damn It Dylan!<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>(Fang POV)<strong>

For about three hours, Jake told us about everything; and I mean _everything_. We actually got to our destination after about half an hour, then took a few cars here, but continued talking inside the building they pretty much lived in.

…

So here's the complete story:

The voice was created by Jeb and Jake to guide Max through a mission they had planed years ago, and as a way to communicate with her when she was far away, or just being plain stubborn (which is all the time). Jeb had obtained this building specifically in the crowded city of New York because he knew, for a fact, that Itex wouldn't look here. Since Jeb had done this all while still holding Itex's trust, they never suspected anything and he could always be on the inside. He was able to get some (a lot of) money from Itex, and all the machinery he needed, without them knowing. Jeb didn't use the voice much, be he could. Jack was the main voice and decided to normally give the flock their privacy, so that's why the voice only appeared when Max needed help on something. Livy was in charge of always keeping an eye on Max's vitals, so she knew when Max needed help. Gavin was in charge of the rest of the flock's health; and Chris was in charge of all the tech stuff. Everyone was easily capable of doing one another's jobs though, in case something happened.

Jake had been a scientist, one of Jeb's closest colleagues actually, and was unwillingly injected with some experimental animal DNA. He said that it made him realize just how inhumane the whole thing was, and so he convinced Jeb to help him to get rid of Itex. So they started on a plan that would need several years of patience and hard work. They got their other colleague, Silvia, into it too since they knew she hated Itex as well.

The thing is, that even if you hate what Itex was doing, you still weren't allowed out of it. You weren't allowed to quit, because you now knew too much. If you somehow got out of it, you would soon be killed. One of the only ways to escape Itex was death, which is exactly what they planned to do for Jake.

About a week after Jake's injection, Silvia and Jeb were able to fake his death and pass it off as a bad reaction to the DNA. Jake didn't have close family members, but they even had a fake funeral for good measure.

Jake was relatively new to Itex, so only that building really knew of him. Jeb was able to get him to New York, and Jake just took residence in the building they bought shortly after. They waited a few years, until his death was no more than a failed experiment in the Itex files; which Jeb later got rid of, for good measure.

They didn't used their equipment for a few years because Jeb first had to get the flock out and make sure Max could survive on her own with us (the flock), and take the lead. He also had to get Chris and Livy out before that too, to use as assistants. Jeb was able to fake their deaths as a bad Eraser accident, and put himself in charge of disposing their 'mangled' and 'un-dissectible' bodies. Chris and Livy had already trusted Jeb through some instinct they had. So when Jeb told them the plan, they were all for it.

It took Jake about a year to train Chris and Livy completely, at the same time that Jeb busted the flock out. They had to learn not only how to work the machinery, but also self defense and basic survival skills (just in case).

When Jeb left the flock and went back to Itex, he told them it was just an experiment to test our survival skills, and that they could get us back in a couple of years to see how we adapted. In the time he was gone they'd made little Ari into an Eraser to test Jeb's loyalty. He was forced to accept what was done willingly, so as not to blow his cover and he had to pretend he didn't care. Jake could tell that it was killing him inside though, but no one ever found out.

Their general goal with us was to take Itex's mission for Max, which was to save the world, and add a little more to it. The whole flock would now have to help eliminate Itex, to end the mutant testing and spare future souls from having to endure that.

Then Chris and Livy told us their part of the story with more detail. They said that they were pretty much an earlier version of us. They were twins taken when they were only a few hours old from their parents, which were told that they didn't survive. They were both made when Itex was first finding which bird genes contributed to wings, so Chris and Livy were the first successful Human-Avian experiments.

Chris was crossed with Cardinal genes and Livy with Blue Jay genes. They even showed us their wings, which looked unreal. This coming from a guy that has wings himself. But their wings were really colorful. They wings were slightly smaller than ours though, and I doubt they can actually fly with them. But that _did _kind of explain their hair coloring a little.

Jake told us he was injected with Gecko genes. He said that since he was already developed when it was done, that he didn't get much from it and his body didn't change because of it. The only thing, which I think is pretty cool, is that he can control hands to grow into Gecko pad-like surfaces. He said it's not enough to support his weight, but it is enough to get a really good grip on things, which would be great for climbing.

…

Max had been battling sleep the whole time and lost ten minutes ago; falling asleep on her side of our really comfy couch and eventually dropping her head on my shoulder. They offered to give her a bed, but I didn't want to wake her up or have her out of my sight, so I said no.

"So what's your story?" I ask in my usual quiet voice, looking at Gavin.

He looked up at me and says, "I was one of the mutants you rescued, I went off on my own and somehow Jake found me." He says simply.

I look at Jake. "I tried to track the mutants that you set free after Jeb told me about it. We could only find Gavin though because he was the only one who left the group. The others, as you know… were retired." He says sadly.

"I'm confused." Nudge starts.

"What about?" Jake asks.

"Well if you say that you hate Itex, like us, and want to end it or whatever… Well then why are you working for them?"

"We're not working for them, we're not even under their name. I just say that we're the good Itex because we have a lot of their things and all of us came from them, but we're not really Itex. We're far from being them. We do have some other people that work with us that are currently working for Itex though, but we trust them; they're our spies, like Jeb." He explains.

Nudge looks over at Max. "I'm pretty sure that if Max were awake right now, she'd say something like 'what makes you think we'll do what you say?' because that's what I'm thinking right now… I mean we just met you and you want us to trust you fully?" She adds.

"Well, ultimately it_ is_ each of your choices, but I was hoping that you would help us. And maybe in the future you can trust us fully, but right now we only need a little bit of trust. Enough that you'll let us take those microchips out of you." Jake says.

"Let's talk about this later, when Max is actually awake." I say.

"Yes, you're right. And she should be awake when we discuss the microchips."

I nod. "Hey, could Max get that bed now?" I ask.

"Of course," Jake says and gets up. "follow me." He adds as he leaves the room.

I try to get up, but Max was on my shoulder. I carefully hold her head so it wouldn't fall, and then get up from the couch and grab her. I was carrying her bridal style as I looked over at Livy, "Hey, she'd OK right? She's usually a really light sleeper."

"I would have to go to my computer in the next room to make sure, but she looks fine to me. She's probably just really tired." Livy tells me, getting up as well.

After I lay Max on the bed Jake gave her, in a room all the girls will have to share, I hear a knocking at the door.

"Come in Dylan." I say, not even looking up from Max.

"So she actually never woke up?" He asks me.

"No. I tried to not move her around that much when I carried her here, but she would have normally woken up from that." I say.

"She looks fine though…" He says, confused.

"Psh, then you haven't seen her stomach. I swear, that kids gonna break her in half." I say, not sitting up in my seat with my forearms on my legs.

"What?" Dylan asks.

"I'm guessing she didn't tell anyone." I say calmly.

"No. What are you talking about?"

"The baby's been kicking." I say. "Really hard." I add.

Dylan looks over at Max, just in time for her to twitch a little from a kick.

"I don't think we can do anything about it though." I say.

"I felt that, and it didn't feel good at all. I can't believe Max's been putting up with that. Maybe I could try to calm him or something." Dylan suggests. "Maybe he's just stressed because she is."

"Yeah, try that." I say. I couldn't stand to see Max getting beat up like this and not be able to do anything about it.

Dylan comes closer and sits on the bed my Max. Right as his hand lightly touches her medium-sized stomach, which I was trying to keep myself calm about, she finally wakes up.

Oh, oh…

**(Max POV)**

I felt something on my stomach and instantly my eyes shot open and I instinctively kicked the blurry figure that was leaning over me.

There was a loud *bang* and then a whispered "Shit…" from the wall.

"Max, calm down, it was just Dylan." I hear Fang say beside me.

My eyes were now adjusted to the light, so I could see. I looked to the wall and saw that the figure I'd forward-donkey-kicked was, in fact, Dylan. "Oh my God, Dylan, I'm so sorry!" I say, looking at Dylan, who was now sitting against a wall with a dent in it.

"Why do I always get thrown at walls?" He asks, getting up and rubbing the back of his head.

Then I get kind of mad. "Why were you touching my stomach in the first place?" I ask angrily.

"We wanted to see if we could calm the baby down." Fang tells me.

I look at him. "What?"

"He's been kicking you too much. We thought that it might be because you're both stressed. So I thought that maybe I could calm him." Dylan tells me.

"What's going on!" Jake asks, barging into the room.

He looked around and saw me wide-eyed, sitting on the edge of the bed; Fang calmly sitting in his chair beside my bed; and Dylan rubbing his head and standing beside wall with a hole in it.

"What happened in here?" He asks again, walking over to the wall and examining it.

"That was my bad." I say, raising my hand and blushing. "I got scared and kicked Dylan into the wall, sorry about that."

"Um…" He says looking back at us and then giving up, he walks out of the door saying, "Don't break anything else."

"Pretty chill guy." I say.

"You got that right." Dylan says.

Fang nods.

"So can I calm him down now?" Dylan asks.

I give him a confused look until I realize he was talking about the baby. "Well he's not kicking anymore, so…" I say.

"Maybe it's because you're calm now, but we should test to see if it _is _stress that causes it. So we'll know in the future and we can see if I can help." Dylan rants.

"I don't want Max to get hit on purpose." Fang says defensively.

"This will be controlled, so I can just undo what I did and it'll all be fine."

"Can you all stop talking about me like I'm not here?" I scream. "God, you're worse than white coats…" I whisper to myself.

"Sorry, Max. What do you want to do?" Dylan asks.

"Although I would rather not get hit, I still want to know because he might be telling me that he's not feeling good or something, so you can do the 'test' thing." I say.

Dylan nods happily.

I wonder about this boy sometimes…

He walks over to me and sits beside me on the bed.

I think it's cute how Fang is looking at Dylan's every move so intently right now.

"I'm going to make you stressed and see how he reacts to it, OK?" Dylan informs me.

I nod. Fang looked like he wanted to leave, but at the same time not.

I felt myself getting really tense and realized that Dylan was already doing it. "I don't feel him doing anything." I say and then suddenly feel him move in me. "Never mind, he's moving now." Then he kicks me. "OK stop Dylan, he's kicking me now." I say, putting a hand on my stomach.

"I'm trying to calm you down, but try to help me. Calm down Max." Dylan tells me.

"Why'd we do this goddammit?" I ask loudly. He kicks again, "Aw fuck!"

Nudge came in the room and looked mad, "Max, the baby can hear you! Quit it because I can hear you from the other room..." She tells me, then starts blabbering on about how cool it would be to make him listen to Mozart like in TV or something.

"Nudge shut up! Ow! I think he's kicking my intestines!" I shout.

"Dylan!" Fang screams.

"Max calm down!" Dylan tells me.

"Don't tell me to calm down! I swear if this hurts so much, I can't imagine what giving birth will feel like. My God, I'm gonna get my mom to castrate you both!" I tell them.

Dylan's eyes widen and Fang rolls his eyes and hit Dylan's head. "Fix this!" He tells him angrily.

Everyone was now either in the room or in the hall way.

Livy rushes into the room looking worried. "Stop whatever you're doing, Max is getting internal bleeding!" She tells us.

"Do you think I enjoy this?" I scream at her, as he kicks my guts again **(nasty).**

"Hate you tried to calm the baby directly, instead of just Max?" Someone says in the back, I think Gavin.

Dylan puts his hand close to my stomach, making me tense even more. It really aggravated me to have people close to my stomach for some reason, even in my own flock. Except for Fang or Iggy. Iggy because he was like our medic and I was just way too used to Iggy to really mind.

He stopped kicking me instantly and I looked up at Dylan. "Why didn't you try that sooner." I say through my teeth.

"I- I don't know." He stutters. "Sorry." He tells me, ducking his head.

"We are never, and I mean NEVER, doing that again." I say and get up. A stab of pain goes through me and I sit down again, clutching my stomach.

Livy rushes to me. "Max!" She screams at the same that Iggy, who was beside Fang, kneels on the ground.

"What hurts?" Iggy asks, looking a little calmer than Livy was.

"I don't know. Like around here." I say, pointing under my ribs.

Iggy puts his hand just above my baby bump, and starts to feel there for a moment. "I think you have a broken rib." He says looking at me. "Don't move too much because it might puncture something." He tells me, a little more worried now.

Livy was now beside Iggy. Jake was telling everyone to leave or at least make room.

"We have a medical office down the hall." Livy tells me. "We should get you checked out."

I think about it. "Fine, Iggy come with us." I say. He nods and stands up.

She lifts me up very carefully, which surprised me until I remembered that she was a mutant too.

"We should get her an X-ray." She tells Iggy.

"If you have a lead sheet, then OK." Iggy says.

"A lead sheet?" I ask as we slowly walk (me carried) down the hall.

"They're to protect from the radiation that X-rays give off." Livy explains. "And yes, we have those. I'll put two on her for good measure, like you're supposed to, but I doubt that it'll do anything to the baby anyway." She says.

After they get the X-ray, Livy tells me that it didn't puncture anything so I'll be fine. The rib only cracked a little and I just have to stay still until tomorrow, for the bone to set.

So here I am; lying down on my bed with my back to the mattress, which the _winged_ don't do because we have _wings _on our backs. But I had to since the bone was setting and if I lay on my side, it might set wrong. So here's my face as I look at the ceiling **[ :| ]**,I grunt loudly.

"You'll be fine." Fang tells me smiling. He was sitting beside me and holding my hand.

I smile. Well at least I had Fang. "I hate Dylan…" I say, now frowning.

"I know you do." He tells me soothingly.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Super long chapter… Sorry about that, but I hope this answers some questions about the voice. And just to clear it up for you guys, the voice isn't just Jake. The voice is <strong>a group of people** that try to help Max out for a mission that Jake and Jeb came up with. It's mainly Jake, Chris, Livy and Gavin, but there are other people actually **in** Itex that also help. Jeb left Itex so that puts him in danger, but so far they haven't gotten him. It also makes him a little less valuable for the voice because he's not high up in Itex anymore, and he can't get good info.**

**Te quiero mucho! Y perdon por hablar tanto:/**

**~L**


	32. Getting Used To Jake's

**A.N- I've been really busy these past few weeks, so I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I had testing and a bunch of other crap. This week is my birthday and then I have more testing in a couple of weeks, so it might take a while to update again, but thanks to all the people that are still reading and I hope you all can patiently wait. Because the next time I update will be a time skip and Itex will start getting involved. I'm sorry if this chapter sounds a little weird, but I wrote little bits at a time throughout these weeks, so that's why it might be all over the place. **

**Special thanks to:** _Drakefire, MAX-FANG-FAX,_ _Burnin'blackandblue,_ _LOVE HATE DUH,_ _MockingJayBirds _**(that's the reaction I thought it'd get hah)**_,_ _dopeycookiemonster,_ **&**_Lydia_ **(x2 haha)**

* * *

><p><strong>Getting Used To Jake's<strong>

* * *

><p>A few weeks passed after the incident with the baby, and I healed completely after just a couple of days. I also forgave Dylan after a few thousand of his constant apologies, just so he'd shut up.<p>

Jake had taken the chips out of all of us, on by one, until only Ratchet remained. We found out that he actually didn't have a chip and Fang told us it was because he was born with his powers. Itex had nothing to do with him.

Gazzy and Iggy were back to building bombs and apparently found great materials that Chris was just _itching _to get rid of. I told them that as long as they were careful, that I wouldn't bother them. Great leader-ness, right? But my logic was that Iggy had enough common sense to not do anything _too_ dangerous, and that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to Gazzy. On top of that, I never had much energy to keep a close eye on what they did every hour of the day, so I gave the task of checking up on them once in a while, to Fang.

Nudge and Star have been getting along pretty well; something no one would have guessed in a million years. I mean with Nudge being the motor-mouth she is, and Star being so easily annoyed, they were destined to clash. But somehow a friendship was starting to bloom instead.

Gavin would talk to us from time to time, more so than the rest of The Voice (which is what we call this group of people, for obvious reasons). He also seemed to have a little crush on Nudge. I thought it was cute, but at the same time I would kill him if he even tried to get alone with her. After this whole pregnancy thing I've been overly protective about all of the couples in this flock.

There wasn't much I could do about the older couples like Dylan and Maya _because_ they were older. I would just have to trust that they wouldn't do anything that could lead to Kate's and I's situations. Then there was Iggy with my sister Ella, but I knew that he wouldn't do anything along those lines for a very long time. Unless he wanted to deal with me, which I'm sure is the last thing he'd want to do. Also because I knew that wasn't who he was. He was one of the nice guys and wouldn't do anything that the girl wasn't OK with. Or at least I hoped…

So the only ones I _could _actually do anything about were Gazzy and Nudge. Gazzy, I'm pretty sure wasn't at that age yet. And Nudge… Well Nudge is the one I'm stressing over at the moment.

Anyway I, along with the most of my flock, had grown to trust Jake, Livy, Chris and Gavin in these past weeks. They really seemed like they wanted what was best for us. Jake had explained that his first priority was to get the chips out of us because that was how Itex was tracking us. He told us his theory on why Itex had left us alone for so long and why they wanted us now.

Jake also told us that after the chips were out of us, we would be free to leave whenever we wanted to. He said we would be pretty safe as long as we were careful, and wouldn't have to move locations so often anymore.

We all decided it'd be best for Kate and I to stay put for a while, at least until we figured out exactly where we would go.

So we were residing in The Voice's building for the time being. Fang and I were thinking of a place to live permanently. Or as permanently as a flock of mutant-kids/teens _could_ live. Meaning a few months at the most.

We were using The Voice's computers, which couldn't be traced because of some constantly changing computer number or something, to find the perfect place. They even had all of the known Itex buildings marked on the computer map that they let us use. With it, we were able to see the least-likely places we'd be found in.

I wanted to go to a nice little town in Arizona, while Fang wanted to stay here in noisy New York. So that's where we're at now: arguing about where to go.

We were in a room that Dylan, Maya, Fang and I shared. We would normally to boys and girls separate, but we needed to get everything about our flock in order. We needed all of the new info we'd received straightened down, and that normally lead to us four (Dylan, Fang, Maya and myself) talking all night long. So we just decided to room together.

"I want Arizona!" I tell Fang stubbornly, looking at him. I was sitting on my bed, a wall to my right, legs out in front of me, with one of The Voice's laptops on my lap.

"For the hundredth time, Max, no." Fang argues back, without looking up from his own laptop he'd gotten from The Voice. He was sitting to my left on the same bed so that we could easily show each other any place that looked promising. We'd been going back and forth about this place for a while now.

"I am the leader, I call the shots. Not you, Fang." I remind him through clenched teeth and false calmness.

Fang's finger pauses on the mouse and he looks at me. "I thought we agreed on doing this together." He shoots back, a little aggravated now.

"We did, but you didn't even consider it!" I shout.

"Max, it's all the way across the fricken country!" He tells me, almost shocked.

"And since when does that stop us? We can fly, if you've forgotten." I say.

"It's different now." He says a little softer.

"How? We still have wings if I remember right."

He shakes his head. "You and Kate are pregnant, Max." He says, sounding like he were explaining it to a child.

"Really? Wow, golly. When did that happen?" I exclaim with major sarcasm.

He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration and closes his eyes. "Max, just a few weeks ago you had some trouble flying for a few hours. Do you really think you'd be able to fly for a few day-" He says, now looking at me, before I interrupt him.

"We'll have breaks."

"If we have them as often as you need them, it'd take us a decade to get there." He tells me calmly. "Then there's Kate. I'm sure she wouldn't enjoy being lugged around for so long."

"We can take cars there." I try.

"We're easier to be ambushed on the ground." He counters. "You two just can't travel this much for the time being. We need somewhere closer. Somewhere where we know our way. Somewhere we could blend easily into."

"So where do you suggest then?" I ask, folding my arms stubbornly.

He moves his finger on the laptop's mouse pad and makes the monitor brighten again. He then double taps the pad and turns the laptop slightly over so I could have a better look.

The street names looked familiar for some reason and I looked to the top to see the address bar. "New York? We're _in _New York." I say.

"Exactly." He tells me. "We're already here so you and Kate won't need to go through the whole travel thing. We're already familiar with theses streets, and because of the huge crowds we'll be able to go out without being found as easily. And on top of that, we have The Voice close by in case we need their help somehow."

"But the flock's claustrophobic?" I try.

"I outgrew it, so can the rest of you." He says. "Face it Max, this is the best choice."

I grunt and face the wall, after closing the laptop and putting it at my feet.

I hear Fang close his laptop and put it on the floor. Then I feel him come closer, I think sitting behind me, and whisper, "Don't be mad."

"I'm not mad." I say angrily, still facing the wall.

"Max." He says. When I don't answer, I feel him move some more until I feel his head on my shoulder and his arm around me. "Pwease don't be mad at me." He tells me in a little kid voice.

That was so un-Fang- like that I chuckle and turn around to him. Now only a few inches from his face, I say, "I'm not mad at you. I'm just, I don't know. I just wanted to go to Arizona." I tell him.

He closes the short distance and makes our noses touch softly. "Why Arizona?" He asks, now hugging me to him. He extends his left wing over us, out of habit, until we were almost completely cocooned in darkness.

I think about it for a moment. "I want to see my mom and Ella." I say, now realizing it myself.

"Oh." He says, looking down. His gaze lands on my slightly protruding stomach, probably without even meaning to, and then he looks up again. "Do you want your mom to be here when… When he gets here?" He asks quietly.

"I don't really trust anyone to help me with this when it's time, other than her; and the flock of course." I confess. "But I'm sure Iggy wouldn't want to do this sort of thing…" Fang makes a weird face at this, almost angry at the thought I guess. "…Or you…" I add. He makes an even weirder face now, which made me laugh. "…Or the rest of the flock for that matter. Most of them would probably pass out just thinking about it." I say, grabbing one of his hands and tracing patterns on his palm as we speak.

He nods. "We can just call her whenever you think you'll need her." He suggests.

I nod and we stay quiet for a long time, a nice kind of quiet that only Fang and I can truly pull off without it getting awkward.

This bed wasn't bigger than the average twin sized bed, but we both fit and still had room to spare. It was warm from our body heat even though we were on top of all the sheets and comforters, and I was getting ready to fall asleep.

It was night time and most of the others were fast asleep by now. Other than Dylan, Maya, and us that is.

I'm not sure where Dylan and Maya were, but they always slept in this room so I doubt that they're sleeping. They had gone out today, to see a movie or something, which they should have been back from already. I'm not going to worry though because, one: they're old enough to take care of themselves, and two: if I worry too much they baby will start to stress. And a stressed baby= a more than stressed Max, which I will not go through again…

Fang had put his chin on top of my head a while ago, making the side of my face rest firmly on his familiar chest. I could hear the beating of his heart, which was like a lullaby to me by now, and started to drift off.

"Are you sleepy Max?" I heard Fang whisper close to my ear.

"Mh hm." I hum, waking up slightly. He then started to get up, separating his body from mine, which had been curled up against him, and waking me up completely. "No." I say holding onto the end of his shirt. "Where are you going?" I ask, a little hurt from his sudden departure.

He was standing up now, wings tucked in, and my hand attached to his shirt as he looked down at me. "To my bed, since I thought you'd want more room." He explains.

"No," I grumble. "Sleep with me." I tell him, well actually _order_ him is more like it.

I didn't care that his bed was only a few feet away from mine, I still wanted to be right beside him.

His mouth goes up in a half smile, "Fine," he says slowly "but only because you asked so nicely."

I smile and pull the covers down for him and me to go into. As I did this, he walked over to the door and turned the lights off. **(Minds out of the gutter people, this is just supposed to be an innocent moment.)**

After he'd lain down beside me again, he pulled the covers over both of us and I scooted as close as I could to him. He put one arm under my head, which I would choose over an actual pillow any day, and another arm around my waist to hold me closer.

I tucked my head under his chin and he said, "I love you Max. Good night."

"Night, love you more." I responded.

"Not possible." I heard him barely breathe.

I smile again and nuzzle my head closer to him and his warmth.

… **Next Morning…**

I woke up from feeling the bed move and at first I didn't want to open my eyes. I was under the covers in a dark room, completely warm, so of course I wouldn't want to get up. Who would? So I end up just opening my eyes so that I would wake up.

I could hear some whispering from close by, most likely inside this room. I start to listen in and realize that it's Fang and Dylan.

"Where were you all last night?" I heard Fang ask, quietly.

I slowly press a few fingers down on the sheets in front of my face. That way I would be able to see them without them noticing me; just in case they would stop talking if they knew I was listening.

"Just out. We told you, remember?" Dylan tells Fang. Dylan was in his bed, lying sideways, looking up at Fang. Fang was standing beside his bed, casually looking down.

"You said you were seeing a movie. Movies don't last six hours." Fang tells him, calmly.

"We walked around afterword. What does it matter?" Dylan asks defensively.

"What does it matter?" Fang asks rhetorically. "You could have been taken by Itex or Hans or something and we wouldn't know because you didn't even have your phone on." He says, now getting a little mad. "Max was getting worried. She tried to hide it, but I could see it in her eyes. What if she got too stressed and _he _got stressed? You know you're the only one who can control him. Do you even care about her anymore?"

Dylan had been looking down as Fang spoke, looking ashamed. "Of course I do, I just wasn't thinking." He says, a little quieter. "I swear I'll never do that again, I'm really sorry. She's OK though, right?"

"Yeah she's fine." Fang answers. A few seconds pass and realizing they have nothing left to say, Fang walks to the door. He pauses after opening it a little, letting light pour into the dark room, and turns back, "And you better not have done anything with Maya." He warns, before walking out and closing the door behind him, darkening the room and letting what he just said to sink in fully.

What had Fang meant by that? I mean other than caring for Maya like I care for Dylan and the flock. I don't know if it was just me over thinking it, but it almost sounded like he meant something more. _Had _he meant something more? Had anything happened between them while we were apart?

Questions like these flooded my head as I lay, motionless and quiet, on my bed.

Our room was pretty small. And because of its size, we had two bunk beds instead of four single ones. One was to the left of the door, which the guys used. Dylan on the bottom bunk, Fang on the top. Then the second bunk was on the far wall when you walked in, facing the door. Maya and I had taken this one, Maya on the top and me on the bottom since I was with child.

I was looking up, at Maya's top bunk, mentally asking her a billion questions that had drowned my mind.

A while passed until I heard Dylan stir.

I was too deep in thought to realize he'd gotten up until he was a few feet away. I quickly shut my eyes to pretend I was sleeping, so there'd be no evidence that I'd been eavesdropping, but it was no use, "Max I know you're awake." He whispered.

I opened my eyes, sitting up and turning to my left to see him. He was standing beside my bed looking at me with a blank face.

"I'm really sorry I left for so long, I really am." He tells me.

"It doesn't matter. Fang was just overreacting, don't mind that drama queen." I say with a smile.

"I know it's bothering you." He tells me, seriously. "What he said about Maya I mean."

My smile disappears and I look down.

He takes a seat on my bed, causing me to bounce a little, and says, "Don't worry about it so much, I don't think you have anything to worry about. He wasn't feeling- what he feels with you, when he said it. He was just saying it out of, protection I guess. Like the way you protect the flock."

I nod. That had made me feel a little better, but not much. I looked up at Dylan.

The room was still as dark as it'd always been, but my eyes were well adjusted now, probably the way Dylan's always are, and I could see Dylan very well because of the little light coming from under the door. So I could see his face perfectly when he said, "Or you could just ask her yourself if you really want to know. You know, so you won't have any doubts."

I give him a confused, and a tiny bit shocked, look. "She's awake?" I ask.

"Well no. She's a lot different from you in a lot of ways, one of them being that she'd not as light of a sleeper as you. But you can ask her later, when she wakes up."

I nod, and decide to get up.

"Or you could just ask Fang." He adds when I'm halfway to the door.

I pause and think about it. Then I keep going, having decided that'd it'd be less awkward to ask Maya. "Later." I tell Dylan, walking out the door.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Hey guys, just though that it'd be cool to have a question of the day (or question of the update). So I'm just curious, what is your gender(not in a creepy way)? I know that this story is more girlie, so I'd expect more girls read this than guys, but are there any guys that read this? And if you don't want people to know that you're reading this you can even leave an anonymous answer or something. I just want to know.<strong>

**Love, **

**~L**


	33. Scissors Scare Fang

**A.N- Alright, so I lied. Itex isn't involved yet, but I'll try to get them in soon. But for the long wait, here's a long chapter.**

**Thank you reviewers and yeah, I figured no guys would like this story… Hah, oh well. So yeah, I'll update quicker now as long as I see that people are still interested:)**

* * *

><p><strong>Scissors Scare Fang<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>A month later<strong>

It was now the last week of March and we have been living in an apartment building for several weeks. I was a little over three months pregnant, which according to Han's calculations was half way through with it.

I really couldn't believe that I would be a mom in about three months, I just couldn't. I mean I've always felt like a mom to the flock, but this would be different. This child would actually be my own flesh and blood. Well half my flesh and blood anyway. I was really happy about the whole thing.

At the same time, however, I was a little worried about it too. Like what if once he was actually born, and turned out to be Dylan's, that Fang would change his mind and not actually want to stay with us? What if something went wrong and there were complications with the whole delivery thing? I mean I was pretty young after all. Or what if we were attacked right when I go into labor?

"Chill, Max." I hear Dylan say calmly, from beside me.

We were in Central Park, on a nice, sunny March day. Everything was beginning to bloom, which made all of the greenery look beautiful. The trees ranged from delicately, light greens, to bright whites and pinks. There weren't many flowers, but I'd seen a bunch of buds making their way up.

Dylan and I were both sitting in the roots of a tree, being shaded by its branches that were just starting to gain back the foliage they had lost during winter. We were keeping an eye on the flock, who were all running around; playing football or volleyball or something else in this giant clearing. We were all surrounded by other regular, everyday people and had managed to look normal ourselves. Even I, who only received a handful of strange looks (you know from being fifteen and visibly prego). Well at least _I_ thought it was a pretty good achievement.

I didn't take my eyes away from the flock as I said, "Yeah, yeah, I know."

We'd gone out to the park today especially for me to relax, and yet I still found ways to stress myself out. That's just typical me. I looked around at the flock to try to distract myself.

Iggy was throwing a blue Frisbee at Gazzy, who caught it with his mouth, making Iggy laugh. I won't even ask…

Nudge and Star were playing with a volley ball, trying different hitting techniques each time. Nudge was talking non-stop (about God-knows-what) to Star, who seemed to be listening to it all as they hit the ball back and forth. Once in a while Star would say something and Nudge would brighten up, happy to have a two-sided conversation for once.

Ratchet, Fang, Holden, and Maya were playing football. Don't ask me how, but they were. I mean, I could have sworn you needed more people to play, but apparently not the way they played it. They looked like they were having a lot of fun though, so I wouldn't question their methods. It looked a little awkward because of how thin Maya and Fang were, but once you got past it you would notice why it was that they were the only ones to not have stained clothing. They were both able to take Ratchet and Holden down easily and escape their grips quickly because of their slim and quick bodies. I didn't watch for long, but it seemed that Fang and Maya were winning.

I scoot backwards until I feel the tree's bark graze against my hoodie, and wings underneath. Then I sigh and look up through the slightly filled branches, to the sky. It was a nice day, not too many clouds, not too bright, cold, or warm. It was just perfect for the flock.

"So Max," Kate begins, from her spot beside me under the tree. "Have you thought of any names?"

Still looking up, I answer, "Yeah, I've thought of a few."

"Mind sharing some?" She asks politely.

"Well there's Aaryan and Sorin for a boy, or Arianna and Nikki for a girl. Nudge really enjoyed looking for those, but nothing's set though." I say. "What about you?"

"Anything good?" Dylan asks.

"Well not really. I think that when I see them, that I'll just know." She tells us.

"That sounds good to me." Dylan says with a smile.

"Yeah, that sounds great; I know they'll get the perfect name." I say, smiling as well.

Kate smiles. "Thanks you guys." She says.

After a pause, I ask, "So, if you don't mind me asking. How are you and Ratchet anyways?"

"Oh, I don't mind at all." She smiles again. "We're actually back to what we were before this whole baby thing. He was just a little shocked, that's all. He said he was fine with it now and that he would help me with everything."

Dylan coughs.

We both look at him and he looks at Kate. Then I look at Kate and catch her giving Dylan a slightly harsh look (as harsh of a look as Kate can give), but when she sees me turn back, she quickly wipes it from her face and puts a smile back in its place.

I'm slightly confused, but decide to just ask Dylan about it later.

"Hey, Max," I hear Holden say just then. I look behind Dylan and see Holden patiently waiting there.

"Yes, Holden?" I ask.

"Fang wanted me to tell you that everyone is ready to leave now." He tells me softly.

That boy is so quiet most of the time that I usually just forget he lives with us. I swear, he reminds me of Fang sometimes. Or how he was when we lived in the 'E' shaped house at least. I mean he's still pretty much the same: he still wears back, still doesn't talk excessively like Nudge, still likes to keep to himself (if you take me away from the picture).

"Max?" Holden asks.

I shake my head, as if to clear it. "Oh, yeah, sorry. Tell everyone we'll go then." I tell him as Dylan gets up.

He nods his head and turns to leave.

Dylan offers Kate a hand and she takes it happily, giving him a nice smile. The death glare that she'd given him earlier, long forgotten. Dylan then turned to me and offered me his hand.

After I had put my phone back in my pocket, from checking the time, I shook my head 'no'. I then start to get up by myself, putting my hand on the tree behind me for support. Even though I was slightly larger than Kate and probably needed the help more than her, I still didn't like to get help for things that I could do myself.

"You know, it's OK to get a little help sometimes Max." Dylan tells me, putting his hand back down.

"Dude, seriously I swear you read more than emotions. Are you sure not a mind reader?" I say, as I get up all the way.

"I just know you, and it's typical Max to not want any help. Even if you actually needed it, you would still not accept it." He says matter-of-factly.

"I-" I start. Both he and Kate give me a look. "OK, maybe a little." I say.

Just then, everyone starts to make it to our tree.

"All ready?" I ask.

Everyone nod and give 'yeah's.

I realized it was starting to get dark out. "Let's go then." I tell them and begin to walk.

**About an hour later…**

We were finally home after a long and stressful taxi ride.

All I have to say is I HATE New York traffic. Not only that, but also cramped spaces. But you knew that already. Fang was crazy; thinking I would get over my claustrophobia… Psh. And it wasn't just me either. It was the whole (original) flock; we were all bound tighter than… Than something really tight…

We had to take two of those minivan taxis since there were eleven of us, and we all managed to fit.

Now we were back at our apartment building and going up the stairs. I had forbid anyone from using the elevators when we were in our group because that would lead to fighting for who gets to go on, a huge scene, and attracting attention. And that is something we defiantly do not want. Plus, our places were on the second floor anyway.

We had three small apartments that we used between us. The set up was supposed to be:

Fang, Holden, Ratchet in one.

Maya, Star, Kate, Nudge in another.

And Iggy, Gazzy, Dylan, and in the last one.

The set up was interchangeable though. Like sometimes (most times) we end up in a different apartment for some reason, and just sleep there for the night.

"So could I like, do your nails? Cause I did mine last night and I don't want to take it off yet, but I want to try out this other color I got the other day." Nudge says, as she opens her door.

"Yeah, sure Nudge." Star says and walks into the apartment after Nudge. Kate, Maya and Dylan follow them into their apartment at the end of the hall. We all had apartments that were somewhat close to each other, all at the end of this hall.

The building wasn't the most glamorous one, but it was cheap and non-eye-catchy. I didn't want to ask too much of the voice, since they were paying for all of us. And non-eye-catchy was exactly what we were looking for. So all in all, it wasn't that bad.

The walls were ugly mustard yellow that was peeling in almost every single wall, revealing dirty white paint underneath with an occasional gum piece stuck in hollowed out places. All the hallways were carpeted with a light cream colored carpet. Or they used to be cream, I think. Now they were all dark with dirt and what-not. The places where the carpet met wall was the dirtiest of it all though. I'm not even sure of what most of the things in that place were either, but I think I saw a severed mouse/rat tail once. So I tried not to look too closely after that...

The rooms weren't as bad though. But that was probably because I made everyone keep everything cleaned. Like making them take the sheets to the laundry-mat every once in a while, and yelling at anyone who didn't wash any dish they used. The walls were still cracked and the carpets still dirty, though.

I saw Iggy and Gazzy go into their room, followed by Holden who probably wanted to join whatever they were planning. Their room was right beside the girl's.

I went into Ratchet and Fang's room, which they had just disappeared into. Their room was a couple doors down from the others, and on the other side of the hallway. I didn't feel like being in a room with giggling, nail-paining girls or bomb-building boys. So I picked the room with two pretty laid-back guys instead. When I walked in, I went straight to the kitchen.

I passed Ratchet in the main room. He was relaxing on the couch, watching TV. Then I found Fang in their small kitchen, ravaging for food in the small fridge.

I slowly and quietly made my way behind him, planning to scare him, but right as I was sucking in a breath to say 'boo', he turned back.

"Boo!" He said, and picked me up at the same time.

"Ahh, Fang let me go!" I screamed as he throws me over his shoulder. I was pounding on his back, trying to get him to put me down, when Ratchet walks into the room.

"Can you guys keep it down? My ears are about to start bleeding." He tells us and walks off, not even questioning what we were doing.

It was quiet and calm for a second, until I say "Yeah, um, I don't think this is good for the baby."

Fang puts me down slowly and then looks at me once I'm on my feet. He reaches out his hand and puts my grown-out bangs that had fallen on half on my face, behind my ear. We look each other in the eyes for a few seconds and then he starts to get closer until his lips are on mine. He kissed me for a few seconds and then moved closer to deepen the kiss. He held my lower back with one hand to move me closer, while his other hand was layed flat on my cheek. His black hair was a little long so it kind of tickled my lower cheeks.

My eyes widen. "Oh! Thanks for reminding me!" I say, pulling away abruptly and walking to one of the kitchen drawers. I left him a little startled, but he recovered quickly and came to see what I was looking for.

I looked up at him and he put an eyebrow up in question. He didn't seem too hurt about me pulling away so suddenly from his kiss. He just seemed curious at my motives.

"I'm looking for scissors." I explain and go back to moving random napkins, papers and pens around in the, now opened, drawer.

He opens up the next drawer over and pulls out a pair of scissors. He holds them out to me and asks, "Why?"

I grab them. "I've been meaning to cut my hair." I tell him, and then walk away, to the bathroom.

When I get to the bathroom door, I open it and turn on the lights. I see Fang in the mirror, behind me and guess that he must have followed me, without a sound like he normally does.

"But your hair's already so pretty." He tells me with a smile, as he sits on the closed toilet seat.

I smile at him and reach for a comb that was behind him, on the toilet shelf thing. "I don't care much about looks, if you haven't noticed, and it's starting to get in the way."

"Yeah, I know." He tells me. "But it really is pretty though, and so are you."

I chuckle. "Thanks Fang." I say as I finish combing the tangles out of my straight, light brown hair. **(A.N. That's how I picture Max's hair, not blond and curly like the Manga, or straight, blonde like the book covers.) **After I trim a few inches off, I look over to Fang. "You know… Yours is getting a little long too…" I say, looking at his straight black hair that fell below his shoulders.

His eyes widen. "Max, put those scissors down. Right. Now." He tells me slowly, getting up while at it.

"Just a little trim?" I ask innocently, opening and closing the scissors a few times to add affect. He shakes his head quickly. "Just kidding..." I say, walking over to him after putting the scissors back down. "I like your hair." I tell him as I sit on his lap, after he had sat down himself, and give him a peck on the lips.

For some reason, I'm suddenly reminded of how, not too long ago, I used to run away whenever Fang even _tried_ to kiss me; and here I was, now being the one to actually start the kissing.

I open my eyes and smile at the thought as we continue to kiss, and at that Fang opens his eyes. He meets mine with a questioning look. I shake my head the slightest bit and he closes his eyes again, now being the one to smile when I open my mouth a little to take in a breath.

I close my eyes to enjoy the kiss, and out of nowhere, I get a sharp stabbing pain in my lower stomach and take in a quick ragged breath. Breaking the kiss and freaking Fang out while I do so.

"Max, what's wrong?" Fang asks, wide eyed.

I blow out a huge breath, "I- I don't know-" I tell him. "Ahh." I get up, only to clutch the sink, and bend to look at the ground. "Ow, ow, ow- Oh my god, this fucking hurts!" I scream.

"Is the baby coming?" Fang asks, scared. Wow, I've never heard him scared before. I kind of couldn't believe it so I looked up at his face, feeling the pain subside. His eyes were the widest I've seen anybody's and his mouth slightly opened.

I almost laughed at his face, but decided this was probably not the best time. Instead, I say "I don't know. I'm only like three months in." I say, a little scared myself. "Fang get the phone." I say.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Oh no! Is the baby coming now? I guess the only way to find out is for me to keep writing… Haha well anyways, thanks for reading, and please review for the continuation of this extra-long chapter to find out what happens next!<strong>

Question of the update: What kinds of music do you like best? I like alternative rock, screamo kind of things.

**LOVE YOU!**

**~L**


	34. White Eyes

**A.N- I'm so sorry you guys! I know I don't update as often as I used to, but yeah I'm on summer break (thank you girlygamer77). I'll try to update at least once a week, maybe twice, but I can't promise anything… I'm really inconsistent about these thing, as you have already seen, so yeah… Thanks for all of the awesome reviews and I love all of your tastes in music. I like all music genres (except classical), but the ones I said are my favorites. Enjoy:)**

* * *

><p><strong>White Eyes<strong>

* * *

><p>Fang was still wide eyed, but turned to run out of the bathroom.<p>

"Dude, what's going on?" Ratchet asks, now standing by the door. He looked a little scared, but not as much as Fang.

"Stay with Max." Fang almost screams and then finally runs out of the room to get a phone, almost knocking Ratchet over on his way out.

Ratchet gives me a confused look and comes to my side. "What happened, Max?" He asks, putting an arm around my waist to help me up from the bathroom floor I had fallen to.

I would usually no accept anyone's help, but I couldn't think straight at the moment. I was just scared above anything. "I don't know." I say with a straight face, as I'm helped to my feet. "I got this sharp feeling right here-" I say placing my free hand, that wasn't around his shoulder, on my abdomen. "And then it just went away after a bit."

Just then Fang rushes into the room with the phone, that he'd left on the kitchen counter, to his ear. "-Yeah she's right here." He nods his head. "Okay," He says into the phone, and then hands it to me. "-Here, it's Dr. Martinez."

I grab the phone and let go of Ratchet. Now standing straight, I try to calm myself; mostly for Fang and Ratchet's sakes since they were freaking out over here. "Hey, mom?" I say, as calmly as I can manage.

"Sweetie, don't worry, okay? Just stay calm, alright?" My mom says on the other line, with what I judge to be a pretty calm voice.

"I'm calm." I say.

"Alright, so how many of these pains have you had, have you counted?" She asks.

"Should I get the others?" Ratchet whispers to Fang.

"No!" I scream. "Sorry mom, hang on." I say softer, and then cover the bottom of Fang's cell phone. "Don't get the others. I don't want to worry them, okay? Just stay right here until we find out exactly what's going on." I tell them seriously, and then I whisper "I don't want anyone else to freak out like you two." I uncover the phone, "Okay, mom? Yeah, I've only felt one of those things, and it didn't even hurt that bad, I was just caught off guard is all."

"Alright, well there is such a thing as false labor. You could have just gotten that, but we can't just ignore this. Has your water broken?" She asks, still calm.

"Um…" I look down at the sweat pants that I always wear now. No wetness. "I don't think so." I tell her awkwardly.

"Okay that's good, maybe it was just false labor, but don't take my word for it. Your water could break soon. You said that The Voice isn't far from your building right?" She had made me call her every few week, by the way. That's how she knows. "I want you to go to them right now, okay? I don't care how late it is. Most, if not all, of them should be there and they are the ones you can trust." She tells me. She had informed me that Jeb told her about The Voice a while back, and she trusted them. I trusted my mom, so now I trusted The Voice as well.

"Alright mom, I'll call you later if anything happens."

"Call me even if you find out it was nothing, okay? Promise me, or else I won't be able to sleep." She says, and I can hear a smile in her voice.

I chuckle, "Alright mom."

"Love you Max, good luck."

"Thanks, love you too. Bye." I hang up the phone, and then look back up to the guys who were slightly calmer now. "Okay, we're going to The Voice." I say.

**A while later…**

I had tried to tell the flock it was probably nothing and that it'd be better for them to stay. That way we wouldn't make so much noise, but they would have all come even if I said no. So I figured it'd save time to just say yes now, and I told them all to be quiet.

So we were at the voice's building now. We, being_ everyone_… And we managed to not make too much ruckus.

The voice was situated between a dental office place and an alley. It looked like it was part of the dental office. Their building was actually pretty narrow, but long and had multiple floors. It managed to fit all of their equipment, sleeping quarters, and stay hidden, so it was perfect for them.

We stood at the back door so no one would see us. It was only a moment until the door opened and Chris waved us in. They had been able to see us because of their cameras; if you were wondering why we didn't even need to knock. He waited for all of us to enter, before closing and locking the door, to ask, "So, why are you guys here so late? Not that I don't enjoy your company, or anything." He says, with a smile.

His blue hair still managed to distract me, even in this dim lighting, so it took me a while to answer, "Oh, my mom thought it would be a good idea to get me checked out. I might have had a contraction, but we're not sure." I say, as he begins to walk to where everyone (except for Fang and us) had run off to.

"Oh, yes, that would be a good idea. You're about three months along, right?" I nod. "I really doubt that he's ready to come out yet, but we'll check to make sure." He says with a smile.

"Thank you." I say, smiling back at him.

**Another while later… I don't know what they do to see if it was actual labor; maybe a physical check (cringe), or just wait, but let's just pretend that I do.**

Livy had concluded that it was not real labor, and maybe not even _false_ labor. She and Jake had talked for a while about it and they guessed that it might just be part of the pregnancy process for our species. Maybe it was the uterus expanding for the quickly-growing baby, maybe it was just that the baby moved in a bad way; they didn't know. They told me to stay alert about this. Also, if I get more than one of these pains in one day, or if my water broke, then I had to come back here as quickly as possible.

The flock had all been quiet through it and listened to everything with me. I suddenly thought of something once he was done. "So what about Kate, hasn't she been pregnant longer than me?" I ask, looking over at Kate.

"Oh, yes. Kate conceived about a month before you, but you develop at different speeds. Although Kate was also experimented on by Itex-" We all cringe at that. Not just the flock, but The Voice too. "-and Kate develops faster than a regular human, you all (Aven-Americans) actually develop even faster than that. And plus, since Ratchet is actually all human, then who knows… the baby might even take longer to be ready." I almost started laughing at this. Not only did it sound like he was talking about something cooking, but Ratchet also looked embarrassed, which never happened might I add.

Oh and by the way, when The Voice had taken out our chips, they'd asked our permission to extract their information before they destroyed them. We all agreed to it, so now they knew a lot more about us and could help us more. It was actually pretty hard to say yes, and took a whole day of us (the flock) talking about it, but we eventually came to the realization that the pros outweighed the cons. It would be better for people that we mostly trusted to know more than Itex and Hans, who we didn't trust at all, after all.

So anyways, back to the present. Kate looked at Jake and asked, "So around when should my baby come?"

Jake thought a moment. "Well, I'm not one hundred percent sure on this, but Han's calculations seemed to be accurate for Max. I would say that either a few weeks before, or a few weeks after Max's baby comes. I'm really sorry for not having anything too specific, but I wasn't able to get that much from yours or Star's chips."

"Oh, that's okay. I didn't need a specific date. That's more than enough for me." Kate said, with a smile.

"Alright, so if either of you feel anything out of the ordinary don't hesitate to come here." Jake tells us. "We'll do whatever we can to help you- all of you; not just Max and Kate." He tells us, with nods from the rest of The Voice.

We all give our thanks and then leave. It was like two in the morning now and everyone was starting to show just how tired they were.

Nudge wasn't talking, only yawning every few minutes. Star was pretty much dragging herself along the sidewalk. She was the one of us who needed the most sleep because of all the energy her body used. Kate was almost asleep and kept closing her eyes as she walked. Ratchet was holding Kate's hand so she wouldn't run into anything, and didn't seem too tired himself. Gazzy had actually fallen asleep back at The Voice's, after they'd said it was nothing, and Iggy was carrying him with Holden walking beside him. Maya and Dylan were holding hands, but walking slowly behind everyone else, talking. Fang and I were up in the front of our walking group, holding hands. I was still pretty awake from the scare and I bet that he was too since he hadn't yawned once.

We were walking down a dark street, coming up to a street light, Fang was to my left. "Should I call my mom, or should I just wait till tomorrow?" I ask Fang quietly, looking straight ahead.

He looks down at me, which I see out of the corner of my eye, and simply says, "I wouldn't mind the time."

I nod once and look up at him, "Can I see your phone?" I ask him.

He nods and reaches in his pocket.

"Isn't it a little late to be walking the streets in this part of town?" We hear a deep voice ask from an alley we were about to pass at our left.

We both freeze, causing the rest of our group to go on alert and stop as well. "Who are you?" Fang asks loudly, as he pushes me a little back, with his right arm.

The guy slowly comes out of the shadows and looks us over. His eyes hovered on me just a bit longer than the rest of us, which creeped me out. It apparently didn't make Fang very happy either because he stepped almost completely in front of me, repeating his question, "What are you?" a little louder.

"My name is Xavier, I'm part of Itext." We all tense up. "And you're Fang right?" The teenage boy said, with a too-friendly smile on his face. He looked about our age, maybe a little older than Fang, Iggy and I. He had dark brown hair that looked almost like Fang's except lighter. He wore dark clothing which only made him look more like Fang, the only differences were his creepy vive and the color of his eyes. The color of his eyes was actually the creepiest thing about him. He had pure white eyes, like literally: pure white, no pupils, iris, nothing. It wasn't a mistake either, we were under a street light and I could see perfectly.

Fang didn't seem fazed about Xavier knowing what his name was, and if he was, he sure as hell didn't show it. "What do you want with us?" I asked, looking at Xavier from beside Fang's.

"Well actually darling, _you_ are the one I want." He says to me, putting that creepy smile back on his face. "And Kate back there, too." He adds, looking a little beside me, to Kate. I wasn't even sure if he could see, but he acted like it.

"Well you're not getting them." Fang says, angrily.

"I'm sorry to tell ya this kid," Xavier says, now looking back at Fang with a smug look. "-but I wasn't asking." He says and then starts walking over to us.

Fang starts to run at him, but suddenly stops when Xavier's eyes lock on his.

"Fang!" I scream. Fang was now as still as a statue, looking straight forward. His arms were at his sides and his body looked all relaxed, not stiff. "What did you do to him?" I ask, angrily.

Xavier was still walking toward us, looking as calm as ever. "It's a little hard to explain, Max." He says, now looking around behind me.

I look back as I take a few steps back. I see that everyone behind me was completely still, just like Fang. All of their faces showed no emotion, their bodies were all relaxed almost as if they were watching some boring TV commercial, standing up. "What are you doing to them?" I yell at him, now backing up to the street.

"I guess you could say that I cleared their minds. They can still see and hear, but they can't really think or act at the moment." He tells me. "Don't worry, they'll be fine. It wears off… eventually." Then he looks to the side, behind me at something.

"Get away from them!" I scream. We were in a pretty unpopulated part of New York by the way.

He looks back at me and then back at the flock, walking into the group and grabbing Kate's hand. He looks into her eyes and then she starts to walk with him, to where I'm standing.

"Kate, snap out of it!" I scream, about to run to her when someone grabs my upper arm from behind. I look back and see a muscular man who had grabbed me. I look back at the flock as I struggle in his grip. "Guy, wake up! Help Kate, she's right there!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

No one even flinched…

I was dragged back as I screamed and I was now being seated into a white van (kidnapper-mobile). "I wouldn't waste my breath hun." Xavier tells me, now coming into the van as well, with Kate.

I was about to struggle against the guy's hold when I suddenly looked at Xavier's eyes, they _were _completely white after all. There weren't even lines for the irises. Just… white…

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- By the way, if any of you watch Naruto; Xavier's sight is supposed to be like the byakugan sight. Like that you don't see colors, just outlines, and you can see through stuff. <strong>

**My question of the update is: What crazy things have you done with your friends?**

**My friends and I got kicked out of a store the other day, by the manager; for greeting people… What has this world come to!**

**Oh and guys! I'm closing the baby name poll today. I only got 5 people that voted, but that's okay because I have the baby names now, including Kate's baby's which I came up with on my own:)**

**LOVE**

**~L**


	35. Believe In Them

**A.N- There's a fly in my room that's making me go insane. I can't see it, but I've been hearing it off and on for the past week… I'm about to kill something. Anyways, enjoy!**

**Thank you reviewers, loved your answers to the question haha.**

* * *

><p><strong>Believe In Them<strong>

* * *

><p>I wake up to bright white lights from above. All I could think was: What happened to Kate? And the Flock? Was I dead?<p>

I could remember everything that had happened; getting man-handled into the white window-less van, being seated, Kate joining me willingly into the van, and Xavier's white eyes. I remember that when I looked into his eyes that I felt completely relaxed. I couldn't feel anything. Nothing physical (like if someone poked me), or emotional (like when I saw the door being closed and the flock still standing there, motionless).

It was almost like I didn't care about anything anymore and like I wasn't even there; almost like I was just observing everything, but with no opinion on anything. I could see and hear, but had no thoughts about it. I wouldn't have cared if they had killed me right then and there or if they tortured the flock with me watching, I would still have no feelings either way. I was just there…

Now, however, I_ could _feel and I _could_ think.

I tilted my head to the side so that I wouldn't have to stare at the intensely bright light above my head. I looked around and see that I'm in a completely white room that stank of antiseptic.

My eyes widen at memories that the smell brings back, and my stomach churns. I sit up as quick as I can which only managed to make my head hurt. So now I felt like throwing up and had my hand covering the right side of my face because of a headache. Add on the fact that I knew I was in an Itex building and you get: a great start to my day.

I looked around a little more and saw that I was hooked up to a machine beside my bed. I followed the wire that came from the machine to me with my eyes, and realized that it was attached to something I had on my head. I felt around my head with one hand and felt several circular objects hooked to smaller wires along my forehead that led to the one slightly bigger wire that I saw. They were all bunched together and pulled back over the top of my head and the back of it. I didn't feel anything that pierced my skin though, so that was good…

I saw a door on the wall I was facing, closest to the end of my bed. It was white, like the rest of the room, and had a long rectangular window on the right side of it.

I sat up straighter and quickly removed what turn out to be little plastic suckers, from my forehead. As soon as I swing my legs out of bed, preparing to make a run for the door, it opens and three people walk in.

One of the people was an elderly man that had a white doctor's coat on, another was a teenage guy who had black hair, and the third person was a woman who looked to be in her mid or late twenties.

The two guys were talking when they walked in, and the woman looked over and smiled at me. She was tall, had completely white hair and eyebrows, light blue eyes, and wore a white coat. The smile she gave me wasn't creepy or anything, it made me feel calm actually. Like one of Dylan's smiles. Before you ask-no, I don't like Dylan like that. I love Fang and that will never change, but Dylan had something about him that could calm me, and I'm not even sure if it was his power. So, anyway, her smile seemed sincere.

I give her a confused look and then switch my attention to the two males in the room. By now they had ceased their conversation and were facing me. I almost gasped when I saw the teenage guy's face. It was Xavier, no doubt about it, same unmistakable eyes, dark hair, and tall, thin figure. He seemed to remember me clearly as well and gave me that creepy smile of his.

I looked over to the older dude, as quick as I could, so I wouldn't have to see Xavier's face. He looked at least sixty and seemed like the average white coat that I used to be _way_ too familiar with. His hair was mostly gray, somewhat white. He had glasses and a name tag with 'Dr.' in front of his name. _Oooo Fancy_. And he had a pedo-stache… How lovely…

"Nice to see you're awake, Maximum." Dr. Pedo Stache told me. "My name is Pedro." Hah, Pedro, Pedo, they sound the same.

"How long did it take you to grow that thing?" I asked, amused, tilting my head a little as if I wanted a better look at his moustache.

"Excuse me?" He asked, dumbfounded.

"That ferret on your lip!" I exclaimed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "-And does it scare the children? Because it's kinda scaring me right now." I told him.

"Ignore her, sir." Xavier said, barely suppressing a smile.

Dr. Pedo (**A.N. Haha, just noticed that Pedo means fart in Spanish XD)** looked at Xavier, then back at me. "Yes, well, Maximum, that over there-" He said, pointing to the woman. "-is Zaila. And I'm sure you've met Xavier." He directed his hand beside him, to Xavier. "We will need to ask you a few things before we start your tests." He told me calmly.

"Psshh!" I rolled my eyes, "You can ask away, but I won't answer." I said, crossing my arms and sitting back down on the bed, defiantly.

"I don't have time for this." Pedo whispered. He then turned to Xavier. "Xavier, could you please?" He said, motioning in my direction.

I stuck my tongue out at them, "Mm mmm!" I knew it was childish, but I wanted to make his job as difficult as possible. It was the least I could do.

"Sorry Max, but you leave us no choice." Xavier told me with the creepy smile, indicating that he wasn't sorry at all.

Then I felt that light, empty, feeling again and I couldn't think.

**(Alright, so when this mind numbing thing happens, you can't think so I'm just going to skip this. I also don't feel like writing it since I don't want to come up with that many questions and specific answers. Let's just say that Dr. Pedro asked questions about the pregnancy and how they were all dealing with it, and Xavier controlled Max to tell the truth about it all.)**

"Alright, Max. Do you have any questions?" Pedro asked.

I was looking into Xavier's white eyes, and I guess he'd undone whatever he'd done to my head now because I could think again. It took me a while to process what I'd just heard, and to think of words for an answer, but they all stayed to wait to hear one.

I looked around the room again and then thought of something that'd been bugging me since I woke up. "Where's Kate?" I asked, in a small voice.

"Don't worry about her. She's in a room like this one and will be treated the exact same as you." Pedro told me with a smile.

I get a chill, but straighten up and start yelling at him. "If you think you're really going to keep us here, then you really must be insane! I'll find a way out and get Kate. Even if I don't, there's always the flock, and you can bet they'll kick _all _your asses when they come!"

They were almost out the door and Pedro turned back one last time, "I'd like to see them try. You are in one of the highest security Itex buildings, which only uses the most powerful and loyal experiments to help them. Like these two-" He motioned to Xavier and Zaila, the woman. "And all that is supposing that they actually manage to find you to begin with." He finished, and then exited the room, closing and locking the door behind him.

I ran to the door and started to pound on it with all my might, making a few dents here and there. I leant my back on the door and slid down it, to the white tiled floor. When my butt makes contact to the floor, I bring my legs close to my chest (as close as they could come to my swollen stomach) and put my arms atop my knees. Then I start to cry my eyes out. Stupid hormones…

What if that idiot was right? I mean after all the flock hadn't even seen the way we'd gone. What if they weren't strong enough to get past these guys, and got hurt? It'd be my fault that they even had to come in the first place. It always was… Why were these people so obsessed with me anyway? With us, actually. Why couldn't they leave us alone? Why couldn't they try new things they thought up on themselves?

Ugh! I needed to stop this! I got up from my little ball and screamed at the top of my lungs, directing it to the ceiling for some reason.

Torturing myself won't get me anywhere. I needed to get a hold of myself and not have these thoughts. I believed in the flock and that's all that mattered. I knew they were strong enough for _anything_, including _this_.

Plus… I might come up with something to get us out, and they won't even need to come to the rescue.

No matter what, though, I still believed in my flock. And that would _definitely_ never change in this lifetime. You can bet on it.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- I know it wasn't one of my best chapters, but I'm trying to write shorter ones so I can update quicker.<strong>

**Question of the update: Which Maximum Ride guy do you like best and why? I can't really choose, I mean I used to like Dylan best because he is like so into Max. But I also like Fang because of his darkish character and also how much he loves Max. AND Iggy cause he's so… Iggy!**

**LOVE**

**~L**


	36. Calm Before The Storm

**A.N- First of all **_Girlygamer77__**,**_** it means a lot to me that you like my story so much and I actually LOVE that you write so much. It gives me the warm fuzzies that you would take the time to write so much; well any review does, actually. I don't care how short or long the review that you all give me is, it still makes me happy and lets me know that you all want more (thank you also to the others that reviewed, love you all!). Oh and **_Burnin'blackandblue, _**I did mean it as in 'pedophile', but then I noticed the Spanish meaning after I looked over it.**

**I also love the suggestions because they give me ideas on what you guys want. So write those to your hearts' content! For example the different POV suggestion (I will do another POV in the next chapter just for the suggestion), and more action (I'll add some more struggle and fight from Max soon). **

**One more thing! You all need to remember (if you forgot through some insane and horrible accident between last chapter and now) Max **is **pregnant, and I'm pretty sure I've added a few things in the past that suggest she's pretty protective of the baby and is being more aware of her (and the baby's) limits. So that's why she's being a little giving-up-y (yeah, that's a word now…), but she's still Maximum Ride and that means she'll put up a fight when it really matters. Alright, I'm done with my ramblings- On with the story!**

* * *

><p><strong>The Calm Before The Storm<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Four days later… (I'm keeping track of the date btw. It should be April 3<strong>**rd**** now)**

I wake up to a ticking noise, and fling my arms to the sides out of instinct. I used to do that a lot if someone woke me up, while we were on the run. I'm not sure why, but I did and it became a habit. I guess it was out of self-protection maybe?

I feel like I'm talking to myself…

Anyway! I sit up in my white hospital bed, gasping. I had been having a nightmare right before waking up. It was about Angel-

_I was wondering around the Itex building, trying to find Kate, when I came across a door that was emanating a very bright, white light. I stopped in front of that door and opened it without hesitation. I saw a little girl with blonde curls that went down to her lower back. She was standing on top of a medal stepping stool, leaning over someone who was lying on a hospital bed, unconscious._

_The little blonde girl slowly looked back to me, from the unconscious girl on the bed in front of her. I noticed that the girl on the bed was none other than Kate._

'_Kate! I found you!' I thought to myself. Then I looked back to the blonde. She was looking at me now, holding a syringe with a smile. "What did you do to her Angel?" I asked, without any emotion other than curiosity._

"_I'm fixing it Max." She told me with a forced smile plastered on her face._

"_But Kate doesn't need fixing Angel." I told her._

"_The baby needs fixing, Max." She cleared up. "The new world won't have room for normal humans, and this baby is more like Ratchet than Kate." She told me, the fake smile turning to a sad one. "The baby has to die." She added._

"_I thought you were _fixing_ the baby." I tell her._

"_They told me he'd be a problem, so I'm _fixing_ the situation, not the baby. The world is already too populated Max, we can't just fix everyone, there's too many people to fix. They want to repopulate the world with only us who are already fixed or talented in any way, and our offspring who are born _better_." She explains. "There's no room for the normals, Max. The world doesn't _want_ them, Max." She tells me, a smile on her face, and then plunges the needle into Kate's stomach without looking back. _

I woke up after that, with a few questions about it. First of all, why wasn't I scared or angry? I usually felt emotions when I had dreams, but this time I felt almost nothing. Secondly, why didn't I object to what was happening? I'd just let Angel go on with killing the unborn baby without a second thought. And third of all, why did I react to seeing Angel again like she'd never left? I hadn't acted surprised at all to seeing Angel, or to her going through with orders of killing. It all felt like everything was normal, nothing out of the ordinary.

They were all pointless questions and not worth the thought, it was only a dream after all, so I try to forget it all. I scoot to the side of the bed and sit on edge. I look up to the source of the ticking.

It was a stupid round, white clock with a black rim that the room had come with. I think they'd made its ticking extra loud just to torture me. I'm sure the room was sound proof because there were no sounds coming in. The only sounds were the occasional movement from me, and of course that content ticking.

I would just sit here sometimes, trying to think of an escape plan, but get distracted by the ticking and just end up screaming in frustration at the clock and at myself.

We could be here for a long time. It all really depended on me, whether we got out here quickly or not. If I didn't get a grip soon, then we were most likely stuck here for a while. At least until The Voice managed to figure out which Itex building we were sent to and a way to get us out. The Voice had spies throughout most of the Itex branches, except for small places that we'd be least likely to get sent to. But it all required time to figure out and The Voice always thinks about all the possible outcomes before going through with something. They'd been working for their plan for years after all, and they wouldn't do anything thoughtlessly this far into things.

I'd been waiting for them, The Voice and the Flock I mean, to contact me in my head, but I guess they were just leaving it as a last resort or something; in case they really couldn't find where we were. Maybe they were trying to be cautious, in case anyone read my mind and tried to block them or something. I really don't know… I'd had a few days to think about this and I really haven't gotten anywhere…

This whole time I'd been sitting on my bed with my forearms resting on my thighs, hunchbacked, while my head was down and I looked at the floor. Now I look up to the camera, in one of the corner of my room closest to the door, and ask "Can I take a walk?"

I'd been keeping track of the days and asking to go out as much as possible. Which they surprisingly said yes to… With the company of that lady: Zaila, of course. She was actually pretty cool in my book. She would let me go anywhere I wanted and look into any room I desired. She even talked to me. I thought it was strange at first, but now I think of it as the highlight of my day. It's what helps me stay sane after hours upon hours of solitude (and ticking, can't forget the ticking). And on top of all that, I was gaining knowledge about where everything was and committing it to memory for thinking of an escape route.

My door opens and Zaila takes a step forward, with a smile. "Hey Max, you ready?" she asks me.

I nod at her and get up, walking to the door without a word. She might be super nice, but she's still part of Itex and I bet she's just been order to monitor my reactions to things I see around here.

I think that they were just monitoring my behavior while I was here because they hadn't come to check on me after that first day. That I remember of anyway. Who knows what they could have done to me really. I mean they could have another experiment like Xavier that wipes your memory and can replaces it with something else of their choosing.

What if they really _had_ done that, and did something to my baby? I'd rip their heads off if they touched my baby. What if they took him out of me already and just put a fake baby back in, to see what my body would do and see how the baby would react out of my body?

"It's okay, Max. Calm down, they haven't done anything at all like that, trust me." Zaila tells me, as we walk down the well lit, grey hall. Oh yeah, did I mention she's a mind reader? She was like Angel and could read and send thoughts, along with controlling actions.

That's one of the reasons I trusted her, somewhat, because she'd told me a lot about herself. She'd told me her power, how long she'd been with Itex, how she had no family and that Itex had taken her in as a baby (which I bet was a lie from Itex and she'd actually been stolen or bought like most of the flock). She'd said how she was regarded as the most powerful mind reader Itex had and that no one could block their minds from her (something we used to be able to do to Angel sometimes), but she could block her mind off from other mind readers though.

"So where do you want to go today, Max?" Zaila asks me.

"I don't care." I say. Then I think about it and ask, "Are there windows anywhere?"

"Yeah, we have windows. We'll have to walk a little bit to get to them though, since we're in the center of the building." She tells me, nonchalantly as we keep walking.

I smile at her, "I don't mind." I tell her and look forward again.

**Later that day.,.**

Now back in my room, I could finally start thinking of good escape plans. So I knew around how big this building was now, thanks to Zaila.

She'd told me earlier that I was in the center of this building, which makes sense since I was a pretty valuable experiment. Yeah, I know that that sounded pretty cocky, but it's kind of true. We (the Flock) were one of their first successful experiments and now one of us (cough, cough, me) was pregnant, and that had probably never happened to their experiments since they rarely manage to escape, and make it.

Being in the center though, meant that there would be more guards to get through. So that'd be a problem. I did manage to figure out how far the way out would be, so that was good. When we went to the windows, I saw a door close to one of them. It might have only been one, but where there was one, there would most likely be more. Also, with my raptor vision, I saw that the windows were single paned and not reinforced. Pretty stupid, if you ask me… Kate could probably just flick the things and they'd shatter.

So now that I had an escape route, I'd need to find Kate somehow…

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Sneaky Max, she's been gathering info for a while so she can make a plan (but will it really be that easy?). Let's see what happens next…<strong>

**Question of the update: What if you were Max and you found out that Fang was actually in control of himself when the baby thing happened. What if he told you that he'd made a deal with Itex (pretending that Dr. GH had nothing to do with this) to make a child and then give him away to them, all in exchange for their freedoms. What would your reaction be? **

**I love reading your all's responses for my questions. They entertain me and this one will probably be very entertainingXD**

**Love,**

**~L**


	37. Sirens Are My Friends

**A.N- So I lied again. No change of POV in the chapter, sorry about that. I'll try to do that as soon as I can fit one in.**

* * *

><p><strong>Sirens Are My Friends<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>April 10<strong>**th**** (I'm putting Dates now)**

It's 11:48 p.m. now; almost time for my daily walk.

A few days ago, Zaila had told me that her boss (Dr. Pedo) wanted to give me more scheduled walk times. He thought that by not having to pick the times that I would get less stressed. That dick…

One of the only freedoms I had here was picking what times I wanted to walk. I mean, I was pregnant, I had mood swings. I didn't always want to walk at the same time each and every day, but I guess I had to endure. It was the only way I would find Kate.

I'd been looking for almost two weeks now and still hadn't found her. I'd even had the nerve to ask Zaila once, but she told me she couldn't tell me. Of course, I never actually thought she'd tell me, but I had to try…

So anyway, this building only had one floor so that made it a little easier. Not a lot though because this one floor was fricken endless! I'd checked out west and south sections.

Every single room that had a window, I'd looked into. Even the ones that didn't have windows, I'd tried my best to listen into to see is Kate was inside.

Every window to the outside I saw, I looked out of. I found out that we were in a desert somewhere (don't ask me where). I found this to be a problem too since I would have to carry Kate. If things were different, and we were both not pregnant, then it'd be a piece of cake to carry her, not sweat (get it, desert, no sweat…Never mind…). But the truth of the matter was that I could barely carry myself for long. I wouldn't be able to carry Kate, let alone a pregnant Kate. What am I going to do?

"Max, it's time for your walk." I hear from my door. Hm. When did that open?

"Oh, yeah, coming." I say, looking up at the clock and then back at the door. Zaila was opening it for me and when I'd stepped out, she closed it back up behind us.

"So Max, how are you feeling today?" She asks me kindly.

I shrug. "Fine, I guess. I got some fruit salad today… It had pineapple." I tell her, nonchalantly.

"Oh, that's nice." She tells me, sounding distracted.

I look up at her and see that her eyes are fixed on something in front of us.

I dismiss it quickly, thinking that she might just have something on her mind or something. I didn't feel life asking her about it though, so I keep quiet. She looks down at me again as we continue down the hall. "So, where to today?" She asks me with a smile.

I think for a bit and decide I wanted to start looking in the east section today. We stop at a hall that leads to three others. I pick the one straight ahead (eastward) and we start walking again.

We walk for a bit, I look through some windows casually, and try to listen into the windowless rooms. Right as Zaila tells me it's about time to leave, I see something. I see a room exactly like mine; all white and pretty furniture-free. Another thing that caught my eye too, along with giving me déjà vu, was that it seemed almost as if a bright light emanated from it- like my dream.

I tried to not get my hopes up so I wouldn't be disappointed when I found out it wasn't Kate, but I couldn't help myself, I was hoping.

"Max, we have to go now." Zaila told me. I could hear a smile in her voice, but I wasn't sure why.

I turned back from Kate's window as calmly as I could, and not smile like a crazy person. "Alright." I tell her, and then we start walking back.

"So, do you feel that these walks are helping you? You know, so you don't have to stay still all the time." Zaila asks a while later.

"Yup, they're great." I say, and then we're back to my door.

"That's good." She tells me. She looks behind her as if checking for eavesdroppers, and then looks back at me with a casual smile and talks in my head. _'Okay Max, listen, I don't have much time to talk to you like this before the suspect something. I'm blocking both of our minds, so don't worry about that. You know how Jake told you there are many people undercover in Itex to gather information; well I'm one of those people. You have to believe me. Here-'_ I hear her say quickly in my head, and then she puts her hand on my shoulder.

When her hand touches my shoulder I see a flash of light and lose my sight of the outside world, while seeing all memories of her talking to Jake or Jeb in my head. The flash only lasts about a second, but in that second I experience years' worth of interactions with The Voice. After seeing all that, I feel I can trust her completely. Yet, the skeptical part of me was just hoping she wasn't powerful enough to make up memories and trying to trick me with them.

'_I told Jake your location and they should all be getting here very soon, alright? You know where Kate is, you have an exit, now all you need is a big enough distraction which the Flock should be able to give you.' _ Less than ten seconds had passed through all this and to anyone who saw, it would have only looked like an awkwardly long pause. Now she walks me into my room. _'Good luck Max. I'll do anything I can to help, if you need it.' _She smiles, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow Max. Sleep tight." She says, then walks out the room and locks the door.

Once she'd out I hear, _'Oh, and don't think about what I told you. There are more mind readers here than just me. My mind block over you will wear off with distance and your mind block wont work on all mind readers.' _I give her a mental nod and start thinking about food, and how hungry I was.

I sit on my bed and only a few minutes pass until I hear a loud siren. I smile.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- I feel like this story is repetitive: Max getting caught, then being rescued by the flock, and then the same thing again. It's already happened like three times hasn't it? I'm sorry about that: Also, sorry this is so much shorter than my usual. **

**Q.O.T.U- Would anyone out there want to work on a story with me? *Puppy dog face***

**~L**


	38. Losing Control

**A.N- Sorry guys, I'm just really lazy. This update is for all my reviewers, I think I got more reviews for this chapter than any other. This is especially for **_girlygamer77_** since I was actually going to wait another day until I wrote it all, but then I saw your review and it made me smile haha.**

* * *

><p><strong>Losing Control <strong>

* * *

><p><strong>(Still April 10<strong>**th****)**

**Fang POV**

We waited outside of the Itex facility in New Jersey for what seemed like forever. As we waited, Jake communicated with our spy inside. I'm pretty sure her name was Zaila. Cool name, in my opinion.

Zaila was supposed to tell Max to be ready and then get in touch with Kate as well. All we were waiting for now, was her signal.

Zaila was apparently the most powerful mind reader that Itex had ever created, and in doing so they created their worst enemy as well. Jake told us that from a very young age she hated Itex and what they were doing. She and Jake had actually become friends from him being her care taker and monitor, until her rank was changed to a white coat herself (which they only did to very 'trustworthy' experiments). She's been able to block her actual thoughts from a small age and replace them with fake ones. This made her be able to gain their trust, and eventually they stopped monitoring her thoughts all together.

Jake told us all of this, as we made our way here, so we would be able to know at least some of Zaila's power. I couldn't help but think that he was leaving something out. It might just be my paranoia though.

We saw white coats walk by the windows in the building every once in a while. Some were walking in pairs and conversing with each other, some had experiments walking with them, some just walked along by themselves, looking all serious about whatever they were doing.

They had Max in there, along with Kate and who knows how many others that they'd abducted or created. They made me sick. I just wanted to beat the crap out of them right here and right now.

"Calm down." Dylan told me calmly.

I turned to him and then back to look at the building. Whatever.

He was kind of right though, I should probably save it for when we're actually fighting.

We were hiding behind some bushes a few yards away from the tree line that surrounded the place. Dylan and I were crouching behind the bush, looking in the windows, while the rest of our group was behind us, talking quietly amongst themselves. I listened what they said, but still kept my eyes glued to the windows.

We'd brought the whole Flock with us (that includes my gang) except for Holden and Star. The Voice, however, had all stayed except for Jake who would guide us. Holden and Star were supposed to guard the Voice's place in case anyone attacked them.

"It's time." I hear Jake whisper behind me. Good, I was starting to get impatient.

**A few seconds later…**

"AHH!" I yell as the door falls to the ground, sending some dust to all sides.

"Sound the alarms, someone's attacking!" A white coat yells as he runs down the hall, flailing his arms all about. I almost laughed.

Dylan rolls his eyes at me, "You know, I don't think that door was locked. I think she opened it for us."

"Way to make an entrance, Fang." I hear a guy say beside the door hole.

I whip my head to face the voice. I meet a pair of cold, white eyes: Xavier. I almost growl, but stop myself deciding it'd be a little odd. "Where's Max?" I roar.

"Oh, I wouldn't be worried about our little Maxie. She's fine, having a blast actually; now that she's without **you**." He tells me with that creepy smile of his.

"She's not **ours,** she's **mine**!" I shout and run for him.

"Little possessive, are we?" I hear Dylan snicker, before I hit Xavier's face with an angry fist.

I guess Xavier wasn't expecting me to actually have the nerve to hit him because he took it head on, or nose on should I say. He staggered backward as I gave Dylan a 'don't fuck with me' glare **(A.N. Phahaha, I almost didn't add the 'with' part. That would have made it awkward!")** When I looked back at Xavier, he was on the floor. He had one of his hand on the floor, trying to push himself up with it, and the other to his nose which was gushing blood down his face and in his clean, white shirt. "You'll regret that." He warns me, as he finally gets to his feet.

"I doubt it." I sneer, walking closer to him.

"I could kill you right now, if I wanted to." He tells me, spitting some blood on the white tiled floor.

"Then why don't you, huh?" I ask casually.

He smiles, whipping away the blood from his top lip. "I want to have a little fun with you first." **(A.N- No homo. God everything sounds sexual to me now after the 'don't fuck me' mistake.)**

"Fang, we have to keep going. Can you hold him off by yourself?" Nudge asks quickly, as everyone starts to run down the hall, following Jake's lead.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Go on, go get Max!" I tell her as Xavier charges for me.

She nods and runs after everyone. I turn back to Xavier, right before he punches me. I turn my head to the side, though, making him miss. Then I put my hands on the floor to do a cartwheel, and kick his jaw to the side; making him hit the wall. "Hmm, you're right. This **is** fun." I say with a smirk.

He had hit the wall with enough force to leave a dent, making him close his eyes and hunch his head in pain as he slid down to the floor. He started to laugh like one of those crazy people in movies. He lifted his head and opened his eyes to look at me. All of a sudden, he stopped laughing. He got up and walked to me. I didn't know what he was doing, but I knew his power and knew I had to try to not look him in the eye. It's hard to know what people will do without looking them in the eye though. "What's wrong, Fang?" He asks me in fake innocence. "Are you getting scared?"

I didn't bother to answer him. I wasn't scared of him and he knew it. I just don't like to be the one to start fights. Even though I technically was the one to throw the first punch, but that was just because I got mad. Now I was calmer and didn't want to go walking in to the trap I know he had for me.

I was looking into the window behind him, that way I could see what he was doing, but not look at his eyes. He was slowly making his way to me, until someone appeared behind me. I stopped and turned back to the person who was closer to me. It was a little girl, younger than us; twelve, maybe. She had light brown hair in two braids, going to her waist.

What was I going to do? I didn't want to fight a little girl. She didn't give me time to think though. She bared her teeth at me, hissing, and showing me her top two, sharp canines. They were like fricken vampire fangs! Then she held her palm out to me and shot something white out that spread apart in mid air. What was she, Spidergirl?

I tried to get out of the way, but it was too close to the ground to duck from, and too big to step to the side of. All I could do was run back for about two seconds until it got me. I ended up face down on the floor with what looked to be a giant spider web blanketed over me. It was super strong and sticky, so when I tried to get it off, it only tangled me more. I struggled for a moment until I saw a shadow come over me.

I looked up to see Xavier's white eyes. Crap, I forgot! I looked away quickly, choosing to focus on his hair instead. It was greasier than Max's… "Look at me, God Damn it!" He screams at me and reaches in the web to grab my hair. It's times like these that I wish I had a buzz cut. He pulls a huge chunk of my front hair, including all of my bangs, up in one hand and makes me face him. I still resist, not caring that all my hair was getting ripped from my scalp **(A.N- I know what this feels like. Not so nice…) **and look to the side. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be, Fang. I'll get you eventually." He orders, still pulling my head up by my hair and moving his head around to try to get me to look into his eyes. "Ah, there we go!" He says, as I feel like I lost control. Shit! "**Now**, the fun **really** begins. I'll let you be able to think, that way it'll be even more fun. For me, that is" He tells me.

Crap, Crap, Crap!

* * *

><p><strong>Q.O.T.U- What do you think Xavier will do to Fang?<strong>

**Love,**

**~L**


	39. Rant And News

**A.N- Hey guys! I thought of just ignoring this, but then thought 'what they hay, I'll just tell you how I feel.' (You don't have to read this. I just need to get it of my chest.) There are a few things down below too, if you don't want to read my bitching and just get to the actual news.**

Ok so, I received a several (5) very negative reviews from someone; some of them with misspellings. It normally wouldn't bother me, since I like to see what I'm doing wrong, but those were just straight up flames. I'm not saying that you don't have the right to say what you want because you certainly do, and I do too. So I'm going to write what I think.

I think that first off; you're a bully. You didn't have to say all that. I mean I'm not making you read it. You came here all by yourself, and if you don't like it, then just go away. I've read a bunch of things that I disliked and were poorly written, but I just stop reading and then go to something else if it bothers me that much.

Second, you are a coward for doing that as a guest. I know there might be other reasons you did it as a guest, but still. I'm not getting paid to write this stuff, none of us are. I could even stop if I really wanted to, but I will not give you the satisfaction of winning. There are a bunch of people out there that actually want to read this and I'll keep doing this for them.

I've been bullied too much already in the real world and I've been trying to stand up for myself. So I will not just lie down and take it on here. I know this sounds childish, but there are too many bullies out there and I don't think anyone should have to go through this kind of thing. Bullies have always existed and will probably never go away, but you should think before you write that stuff. Hasn't anyone ever told you that if you don't have anything nice to say, to not say anything at all?

**For the people that actually like this story and aren't trolls: sorry if I made you think this was a new chapter. I promise I'll keep writing for all of you nice people out there, but I think I'll be taking a little semi-break. Not because of what anyone said, but because I wanted to fix a few things in this story. I've been planning this for a while so it's not because of the review thing. I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'll still update. I'm not sure how often though. I know they won't take like a month, or even several weeks though.**

***I'm going to add dates because I like it better that way and it lets me feel more organized.**

***I'll be fixing a few mistakes I made.**

***And I think (hope) my beta can also go over the chapters that she hasn't already because I saw a bunch of grammar mistakes (especially in the early ones).**

**LOVE YOU**

**~L**


	40. We Meet Again

**A.N- Thank you all so much for your reviews on the last chapter about bullies:) I love you all! I apologize that my story's so slow going, but that's the way I want it to be. So that's the way it shall be. I also apologize for how long this update took, but I've been busy and just never got around to it until someone gave me a little push. Cough, cough, **_Girlygamer77_**…**

* * *

><p><strong>We meet again<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>(April 10<strong>**th****)**

I run to my room's metal door so I can look out its small window. That way I could see what was happening outside, in the hallways. The sirens are still blaring and I can hear feet running from both sides of the hallway. Or at least I think it was both ways. I could be wrong, you know with the sound-proof walls and all.

I realize I'm not wrong when I see five guards running from the left of the hall, and the Flock from the right. The Flock! Any doubt I had about Zaila is now completely gone. I know that I should still be a little cautious with her, but I have a feeling I can give her my trust one hundred percent. I am sure that she is an ally.

I lean my face in, closer to the window, for a better look to the right. I could see Jake up front being followed by Dylan, Iggy, Ratchet, Maya, Nudge and Gazzy.

The guards were all wearing what looked to be bullet-proof vests that were a dark navy blue color, over some weird thick and tight-looking black shirts. They all had on dark pants that matched the dark colored gloves protecting their hands. The guards stopped when they were about ten feet from my door and quickly took aim at the Flock with their guns.

Nudge, however, took their guns away just as quickly as they could take aim. She raised her left hand in a 'stop' motion and then all of their guns flew to the ceiling. They went up with such force that a few even broke lights on the ceiling. After the guns were whisked away from their owners' dark hands and stuck to the ceiling, the guards all gave the Flock angry glares.

I look back over to my Flock and see that Jake was starting to say something. It was kind of muffled, but I could still clearly make it out, "Nudge, I'll need your help. The rest of you; you think you can hold them off long enough for us to get Max?" He asked them quickly.

"Oh, we can do more than hold them off." Ratchet responds cockily, as he pops his knuckles.

Jake smiles, "Good to hear. Let's go Nudge."

Nudge nods and follows Jake as he hurries to my door. The others don't waste any time and head straight for the guards; their fists already clenched with the anticipation of a fight.

Nudge's face literally presses up to my window as she squeals with joy. "Max! I missed you so much. It feels like I haven't seen you in ages!" She tells me, still pressed to the window.

"Save the catching up for when we're out of here. Right now Nudge, I need you to concentrate on this lock. Can you open it?" Jake asks her.

I could hear fighting in the background and took a glance at the rest of the Flock, from Jake and Nudge. I could see Gazzy and Iggy fighting back-to-back like usual, each fighting two guards at a time without breaking a sweat.

I think Dylan was using his power, and playing with his share of guards' emotions because they were all just walking towards him like they didn't know what to do with their lives. It almost looked like they were planning their own suicide as they walked to him… It was scary. And in contrast, Dylan looked about five times as ravenous as everyone else (my guess: probably from sucking out the guards' emotions before he could put in new ones).

Then there was Maya and Ratchet, who were punching guards senseless into the wall. I noticed that the guards weren't wearing anything to protect their heads, and just now thought of how stupid that was. I mean if someone got in a well-placed punch, then the fight would be over, just like that. That's when I noticed that these guards weren't human. Not completely, anyway.

The guards looked like the lizard mutants we'd seen a while back, except slightly more human. Since they're wearing clothes that cover most of their bodies, I'm not sure that they're completely covered with scales like the other mutants were. They have the same red, beady eyes, but they're darker and more discreet. That might explain why I didn't notice it sooner. They also have scales like the last lizards, yet theirs are only at their hair line, so you wouldn't see them at first glance. Also, these mutants were the size of normal adult humans and not the size of an eight-year-old. Lastly, they didn't crawl and/or slither. Instead, they walked up-right like regular humans.

From what I could see, it looked like the Flock was totally kicking their butts. Up until Gazzy fell down that is… That's when I finally looked down at the door.

…

While I watched the Flock and all that happened, Jake was encouraging Nudge as she tried to open my door.

"I don't know if I can. I've never used my power for this kind of thing." Nudge complains.

"I know you can do this Nudge, I believe in you." **(A.N: Cheesy, I know…) **Jake tells her, softly. "You could probably just break it, if that's easier for you."

"This is just so small though. I'm afraid I'll break it the wrong way and then it'll be locked for good." She sighs, and then straightens up her shoulders and back. "But I'll try anyways, for Max." She puts on a determined look and places both hands on the key hole. She then closes her eyes in concentration.

I could hear the lock twisting slightly, this way and that, with the occasional accidental twist of the door handle, as I was watching the fight behind them. Eventually the lock finally gave that satisfying 'click', which is when I looked down.

Nudge gave a satisfied smile as she finished with the easy part. She placed her hand on the door's key pad, which I just noticed was there by the way, for a moment and then typed a bunch of numbers in. The keypad made a noise and gave off a green glow, as another lock unlocked and Nudge finally opened the door.

…

When the door finally opened, all of the sounds intensified and I felt like everything went slow for a little while.

The first thing I noticed was Iggy shouting, "Gazzy's down!" as he punched the guard who'd done that to Gazzy, in the face. The mutant staggered back a few steps, then shook his head and charged back to Iggy with full force. The idiot, however, forgot that he'd made Gazzy collapse right in front of him, and ended up tripping over his limp body.

If it'd been someone that I didn't care for on the ground that the guard had tripped over, I would have laughed. It was Gazzy thought, so this really angered me. Not to mention that he'd intended on hurting Iggy.

I saw red then, and started to run over there until Jake and Nudge each grabbed one of my arms to hold me back. I gave Jake a look that said 'If you don't let go in the next three seconds, you're going to lose a few fingers', but he just kept holding on.

"Max, I know you want to fight, but you're really not in the best condition to be doing that at the moment." Jake tells me. "We have no time to waste. The longer we take, the more guards they'll send, and I have a feeling they'll only get tougher. Plus, we still need to rescue Kate." He says, with a desperate look in his eyes.

I reluctantly stop struggling and they release my arms. "Fine." I spit out. "I know where she is, but I'm not leaving them." I nod to my Flock that was now done fighting.

Iggy runs up to us with Gazzy in his arms. Gazzy was just hanging there with his eyes closed, and arms and legs dangling limply. There was only one single scratch that I could see though, right on his left cheek, below his eye. It was all swollen and red, and I bet that he wouldn't be able to open that eye if he tried.

I took in a sharp breath. "Gazzy! Iggy, what happened to him?" I screech like a mother hen.

"I- I don't know. One minute, he was up and fighting and the next, he was one the floor unconscious." He tells me. I could tell he was scared himself for his favorite partner in crime.

Maya came up to us at that moment and chimed in. "I saw one of those creepers take off his glove and scratch him with it, right before Gazzy was able to hit him back."

"Oh Gazzy!" I cry again.

"It must have had poison or something!" Ratchet adds.

"We can't do anything about it now! Out best hope is to save Kate _right _now so we can leave as soon as possible and get Gazzy the help he needs back at home!" Jake tells us.

I touch Gazzy's non-swollen check, looking at his closed eyes. His mouth was half opened like it is when he sleeps. I loved this kid, and I wouldn't give up on him now. Not ever. I turn and give Jake a firm nod. "Let's do this…"

I start to run down the hall the guards had come from, with the Flock and Jake right on my tail. I could remember exactly where Kate's room was. She had a room close to the windows on the east section of the building. She was exactly four intersecting hallways away from my room. Two doors down, on the left side of the hall.

Right when we arrived, I looked into her door's window. I wanted to make sure she was still in there, which to my relief, she was. A few seconds after I looked inside, she looked up at me too. She was sitting on her bed like I'd been not too long ago, and just looking miserable.

"Don't worry Kate, we'll get you out!" Ratchet calls from behind Nudge, who was now concentrating on the lock.

Only a few seconds pass before Nudge says, "Bingo!" and the lock clicks open. She then put her hand over the electronic keypad before she started typing numbers. Another lock on the door clicked and then Nudge finally opened the door.

By now Kate was anxiously awaiting behind the door, ready to hug the closest person she could get her hands on. That person just happened to be me. "You found me. You found me; I can't believe you really found me!" She sobs onto my shoulder.

I'm not all that huge on hugs, but since she's part of the Flock I couldn't just shove her off. Instead I hugged her back, a little less excitedly than her. "We weren't going to leave you behind, if that's what you thought. You're part of the Flock now." I tell her with a smile when she finally let go.

"Save the chit chat for later. We need to find Fang and get out." Jake reminds us.

"Fang? Where's Fang?" I ask.

"He stayed back to hold Xavier back." Nudge informs me.

"He what?" I shout, angrily.

"No time! Move, now!" Jake orders. He starts to run down the hall with us following close behind, but stops when we get back to my hallway.

The hallway was now empty except for the sheds of glass from the broken lights on the ceiling. It was the only proof of the fight that took place moments before. The bloody guards were nowhere to be found. Their guns were gun as well. The Flock and Jake were the only ones in the hall, or at least that's what I thought.

"Did you hear that?" Jake whispers.

"Hear what? Our feet stopping?" I say, sarcastically.

"No, he's right. I heard it too." Ratchet tells us quietly. "It was two people walking. It came from that direction." He says, pointing to the right at the end of the hallway.

That's when two people walked by, stopping right in the middle of the hall intersection.

"Fang!" I shout.

"Nice to see you too, Max…" Xavier calls back.

* * *

><p><strong>Q.O.T.U- What is your favorite song?<strong>

**LOVE,**

**~L**


	41. Too Weak To Quit

**A.N- Thank you to all my reviewers/followers/readers! I love you all with the intensity of a thousand white suns, and I hope you don't hate me for taking so long to update… Hope this chapter makes up for it.**

* * *

><p><strong>Too Weak To Quit<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>May 27<strong>

**(Fang POV)**

I still wasn't sure what Xavier was going to do with me. I mean I get why taking my ability to move by myselfaway would help him, but why didn't he turn me into a mindless vegetable as well? How would having me be able to talk help him in any way? I would think it would just annoy him and get in the way, but whatever…

"So where are you taking me anyway?" I growl.

We'd been walking through hallways for about five minutes and appeared to be getting nowhere. I was walking to Xavier's right (against my will, might I add) and he was constantly checking some device at each turn. "Oh, you'll see when we get there." He tells me with his creeper smile.

"And why do you keep checking your phone? Texting someone special, are we?" I ask sarcastically. I swear I'm starting to talk like Max…

He turns to look at me with an angry face. I think I hit a nerve there. "No. This isn't even a phone, you idiot." He says, glaring at me. "Since you stupid mutants took your trackers out, we can't use those to track you anymore (Good to know). Instead, we use this device that's telling me where your friends are in the building. It only works in the building though since we have cameras here."

"Well I don't know much about these things since Max is usually the strategist and all, but isn't it a bad to tell your enemy what you're doing?" I ask.

He gives me a smug look. "Since you're never getting out of here, it doesn't really matter now does it?"

He must be really insane if he thinks they could keep me in here… Then I think of something. "Hey, isn't this place supposed to have the best mind readers?" I say, implying he wasn't. That's what Jake told us earlier, at least. "Why can't you just find them by reading their thoughts?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the quiet one?" he sneers. Touché… "I'll tell you anyways, not that it even matters. While it is true that we have the best mind readers of all Itex in this facility, not all of us are mind readers. Most of us here have mind powers, but not all of them are mind reading ones. Like me, I can control the brain and mind, but I can't read it." He tells me, sounding bored. He told me all this while looking at the little tracking device.

Maybe I could use that information to my advantage somehow. He was right though; I'm being very talkative today for some reason. It's not really like me, but I felt like I had to keep talking to him to get information I might need. I guess it's a habit to get information from people that take us. Since Max is usually the one that does it and she's not here now, I guess I just took over that role. Plus, having to be the leader of my own group for a while made me also get in the habit of talking more, especially to the enemy.

I stayed quiet after that because I couldn't really think of anything else, and I felt tired from all the talking. If you can even feel tired from talking… I wasn't really paying too much attention while we turned at yet_ another_ hallway. So when I saw people there, it sort of caught me off guard.

I looked around and saw it was the Flock and that they'd gotten Max and Kate back already. Also, Gazzy looked unconscious and was being carried by Iggy. "Fang!" Max screamed at me.

"Nice to see you too, Max…" I hear Xavier say from beside me, faking hurt feelings.

"Max." I say, my eyes widening slightly. I felt happiness in seeing her face again, after what felt like forever. She really needs to stop getting caught so much…

"Dude, what are you doing with that guy?" Iggy asks, adjusting the Gasman in his arms.

"We got Kate and Max, let's go!" Ratchet adds.

"I can't" I say back, with a straight face, feeling weak to have to say it.

"Fang is under my control now. He won't be doing anything I don't approve of for a while." Xavier tells the Flock, smugly.

"What are you; his mom?" Max growls. "You don't own him, let him go!" She orders.

"How about- no." Xavier tells her. Right as he's finished saying that, I feel myself move forward without my will to do so.

"I can't control myself. Guys, get out of the way. Now!" I exclaim.

"No, Fang. We're taking you with us. I won't leave you behind; ever." Max says, as I start to run.

"Max, get out of the way. I can't stop! Max!" I yell franticly, as I charge at her.

Right before I hit her Ratchet quickly, but as gently as possible, shoves her out of the way; taking the hit for her.

I'm now on top of a wide-eyed Ratchet, who I tackled to the floor. I start to punch him even thought that's the last thing I want to do since he just saved Max from me, but I couldn't stop. I tried to stop as much as I could, but it wouldn't work. It was like I wasn't even in this body any more. Like I was just looking on, in someone else's body, as they beat up my comrade.

"Ratchet, fight back dude!" I scream down at him. "Guys, stop me!" I yell at the Flock. "Please, I can't stop!"

Everyone was just kind of standing there, not knowing what to do. I don't think they wanted to hurt me, but I could really care less about myself right now. I'd almost tackled my pregnant girlfriend for God's sake; with so much force that it would have possibly hurt, if not killed, my unborn child.

They all finally decided to do something after what seemed like forever, even though it was probably only a few seconds. I'd managed to punch Ratchet a few times though, knocking him out on the third punch to the head. That's when two pairs of arms grabbed me from behind.

I turned my head and saw Kate and Jake holding each of my arms. I got really scared then, as my body started to struggle. "Kate, let go! Someone else grab me, I might hit Kate in the stomach!" I couldn't believe Kate had actually grabbed my arm after what I'd done to her boyfriend.

Kate quickly let go, following my orders. Probably out of habit from being in my group. Once she did, I elbowed backward pretty hard with my, now free, left arm. Kate still happened to be close enough to get hit in the stomach and let out a cry of pain.

My eyes widened, "Kate!" I cry.

"Maya, come here and help me!" Jake screams, as I freak out and Kate practically claws at her stomach in pain.

Max had been screaming at Xavier to let me go. Iggy had put Gazzy down and had gone to fight Xavier with Nudge. Kate was now leaning against the wall, with tears streaming down her face. I felt so bad; I wanted to just kill myself so I couldn't hurt them anymore. Not that I'm emo…

Maya and Jake had tackled me to the floor and were literally sitting on me so I couldn't get up. Jake was straddling my chest and holding my shoulders down with all his strength. Maya was sitting on my legs and holding my arms down. It was a pretty awkward position, but it was the best thing they could do at the moment. Although I was really strong and Maya was super light, Jake still weighed as much as a normal human adult male (which made it a little hard to breath…). Both of their weights combined with the position I was in made it hard to get them off- so I should be good for a while.

Then I heard the last thing I was expecting to hear at a time like this. "Guys? I think my water just broke…" Kate almost whispers, but we all hear.

"What?" Maya screams, letting my arms get a little looser. Jake also got a little distracted and looked back.

That's what my out of control body was waiting for and I start to thrash under them; causing them to fall off of me. Shit…

"Maya, go with Kate! I'll try to hold Fang off." Jake says.

"Don't hold back." I tell him. He nods.

Max had heard Kate and was now beside her, trying her best to support her with Maya's help. She looked over at me with a sad face.

When I saw her, I realized something. Max and I had been sparring partners for almost our entire childhood. That meant she knew my weaknesses, probably better than even I did. "Max, tell Jake any of my weaknesses you know of!" I say, as Jake punches me in the stomach. I let out an, "Oof-" which made Max wince. "Please." I beg, breathlessly, as I hit Jake in the face with the side of my arm and make his head go back.

"Okay, Fang." She agrees, reluctantly. "His left leg is weaker than his right- from when I broke it when we were kids." She comments, as Jake straightens back up.

"Try to break it." I tell Jake.

He looks at me questionably, but then nods. He tries to kick my leg, but my body quickly moves to the side and forward, and my elbow hits his back, hard, when he kicks. This makes Jake fall on the floor, and his breath quickly leave his lungs in an audible 'Whoosh'.

"What else, Max?" I ask quickly.

"I'm thinking. You're a really good fighter; there aren't many things that can actually take you down!" She tells me. "Jake, try to hold his arms back behind him and kick his legs out from under him. His balance gets a little off when his arms are held back. Also, when you see that he's about to dodge something you do, duck. Don't think about it, just duck. Or try to get some space between him and yourself. He always steps to the side and hits you with his elbow or a punch after he dodges a hit." Max advises as fast as she can, while Jake gets up and tries to get behind me.

After a while, Jake finally manages to get behind me and hold my arms back behind me. He then kicks me behind my knees. This makes me fall to my knees, but I think his gecko hands activated, or whatever you call it, because he came down with me, with only his palms on my arms.

"Crap, stupid hands." I hear him mutter. Yup, I was right…

My head goes back quickly and I feel Jakes Jaw hit the top of my skull. I feel his hands sort of peel away from my arms and so I stand. "I'm so sorry Jake."

"-'S fine." He tells me, while sitting on the floor, and spits dark blood to the side.

As he gets up, my body charges forward and my arm punches his stomach, hard. My fist moved upward, as he spits out blood at me. My eyes widen.

"Jake!" Max squeals. I look over to her and see she's running towards us.

"No Max, stop!" I scream at her.

"No, you're going to kill him!"

"I might kill you too if you come over here, Max! Stay back!" I growl, as my body straightens back up from the punch it just gave.

Jake was now collapsed on the floor, with blood seeping down from his open mouth and onto the white-tiled floor. I felt my leg muscles get ready to start to run.

"Max!" I yell, right as I charge at her.

I try my hardest to stop myself, but it's no use.

Right as I'm about to slam into her, she moves aside and sticks a leg out- successfully tripping me. I fall on my face and look up at her. She kicks my head to the side with a strong foot.

She gives me a smile. "Sorry, but I'm not like the others." She explains, smiling. "I know how to fight you and I'm not afraid to beat the crap out of you, either." She tells me as I get up. "Just like old times, huh Fang?"

This girl is insane. -_-'

* * *

><p><strong>(Nudge POV)<strong>

Right after Fang started to beat Ratchet up; I decided we should try to knock Xavier out. I figured if he wasn't conscious, then maybe his control over Fang would be gone.

I told Iggy my plan, and he put Gazzy down a little away from the rest of us. We ran to Xavier, who was busy yelling at a pissed off Max. Iggy and I actually managed to get pretty close before Xavier noticed there was a threat. By then though, Iggy had ignited one of his bombs and managed to throw it at him.

I'm pretty sure it was one of his and Gazzy's knock out gasses because it didn't explode like I was expecting it to. Instead, it started to give off a thick, white smoke into every direction as it spun in place.

Xavier realized what it was and rushed to it, grabbing it in one hand and turning around. He chucked it as far as he could behind him. He'd done all of that in only a few seconds, so not much gas was able to get out of the small metal sphere.

"Crap." I breathe out. "That almost worked. You wouldn't happen to be carrying any more of those, would you?" I ask hopefully, as I watch Xavier freak out and swat at the air.

Iggy looks down at me, from watching Xavier wave the white gas franticly away. He shakes his head, "Nope.".

Xavier walked back further away from our group, into a space that was smoke free. He looked a little loopy, but was still conscious. Not inhaling enough of the gas, plus having a strong mind probably made it easier for him to stay conscious- because that stuff was strong… Trust me, I would know. Iggy and Gazzy always try their bombs out before they take them on missions. There was this one time that they knocked the whole Flock out for the whole day. It was back when they started trying out knock-out gas at Dr. Martinez's. It went off in the afternoon and we woke back up in the middle of the night, the next day.

So anyways, I looked back and noticed how Fang was still fighting as strong as ever so I guessed that Xavier wasn't directly controlling his actions. Like maybe he'd ordered him to attack us, but wasn't in control of his every action. If that makes sense at all. I still think that if Xavier is knocked out, that he'll lose control over Fang, though. "Come on Iggy. We still have to knock him out." I say.

"Yes sir!" Iggy responds, saluting me by putting the side of his hand to his forehead.

I shake my head, "Come on, you idiot…" I say, and start running to where Xavier was standing. The little gas that was released in front of us had already dispersed. So when we ran ahead, we didn't inhale any of it. Xavier was looking on at Fang's fighting and probably controlling it further. So taking that distraction to my advantage, I didn't wait to give him a hard side-punch to the jaw. "Take that!" I spit at him (not literally spit, but you know what I mean).

The punch made his head turn to the side, painfully. His already droopy eyes were half lidded as he staggered to the side, and almost fell over.

Iggy, taking Xavier's stumble to his full advantage, ran to him. He grabbed Xavier's shirt and literally ran him into the nearest wall, then held him up by his shirt collar.

"Don't look into his eyes Iggy!" I remind him, from a few yards away. Xavier was probably not thinking straight, and might have not even thought to control us, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

Iggy was facing Xavier, who was pressed up against the white wall. "Don't worry, Nudge. I can do this with my eyes closed." He tells me, laughing at his own joke and still facing Xavier. He then stopped laughing and got serious, something that Iggy rarely ever does. "Now listen up, you bastard-" He hissed. Max would have probably made him wash his mouth out with soap for that, even though she herself curses like a sailor on a regular basis when she doesn't think we can hear. "-If you don't let Fang go **(mentally) **in the next three seconds, then I'm knocking you out with enough force to kill a fucking bull!"

Xavier looks at Iggy for a moment, as if trying to comprehend what was just said to him. "I control Fang." He finally gets out, sounding like a he was drunk.

I looked back to see how things were going for the others, and saw that Fang was now fighting Max. I could see Max had taken her wings out and using them as a sort of shield against Fang's hits. I saw Fang punch at Max a few times, each time hitting the outside of her wings. He then swung a hard kick at her wings and made her stagger back some. When he did that, I caught a quick glimpse at his face. He looked more pained than I'd ever seen him. Almost like he'd cry, he was so helpless; and Fang does_ not_ cry. I turn quickly back to Iggy's direction, "Iggy, hurry up! He's fighting Max now!" I cry.

I heard a '_thump'_ as soon as the words left my mouth. It took me a second to realize the sound had been Xavier's limp body hitting the floor.

Iggy turned back to me with a raised and bloody fist. "Please tell me that did it." He begs.

We both look back and see Fang passed out on the floor. Max was already kneeling at his side, saying his name in confusion.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Just to let you all know, I'm going to try to make the next chapter be the last of them in this facility. I think it's getting too dragged out.<strong>

**So I read the summery for **_Nevermore_**… Kind of a mistake on my part:/ It sounds a little disappointing, but I guess I have to just read myself it to make an actual opinion.**

**Q.O.T.U- Have you read/ will you read **_Nevermore_**? If you have; then what did you think of it?**

**Love you all!**

**~Lucy:)**


	42. NOT A CHAPTER, DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP!

**Hey guys. I'm really sorry I haven't updated in more than a month now. I started school, like most of you, and I just have the hardest classes ever with a bunch of homework every night. I'm sure I'll be able to write again before another month goes by, but I don't want to make any promises I can't keep... Even though I've done it to you all before.**

**ANYWAY, I started on two other stories: one with my friend (not a fanfic) and another on my own (A Naruto one if any of you want to know), and I'm not even keeping up with those. I'm going to write a bunch of my new story before I post it and I'll try to update this before that.**

**Since I probably won't be updating for a while, I just want to say a few things to feel like I'm not completely ditching you all:**

**First off- This story is a little more than half way over (I know, thank God right?). I know that this is a really long story, but I just really enjoyed writing it and a bunch of people enjoy reading it apparently:). I'm might make a sequel to it too (I'll make a poll about it after I actually finish it and see what you all think), if I haven't mentioned that yet, and I don't think it'll be as long as this one.**

**Second- This will **probably** be the last BOOK fanfic I will make (unless I get a request to do something and agree to it). I'll be making anime fanfics from now on (not counting the sequal to _Finding Their Way, _if it happens**_)._

**Well that's kind of it... Sorry again, I really do feel bad to just have stopped updating.**

Reviews-

Well apparently _Nevermore _sucks hahaXD Sorry to hear that you guys. I think I told some of you all that I might do my version of it after I read it, and I might. I don't know yet though. Would you all want me to?

And thanks for the "Nice Spanish" Review haha, I'm actually fluent in it:)

* * *

><p><strong>Watashi wa yūjin ni anata o aishite (not sure if that's even right)! <strong>

**I LOVE YOU ALL AND HOPE YOU DON'T HATE ME!**

**~Lucy:)**


	43. Freedom At Last!

**A.N- Hey guys. Sorry about the two month wait. I think I've said this before, but all my classes are advanced and stuff so I get a lot of homework and need to study a lot. Also I'm trying to be more social, so yeah… Again, sorry about the wait, but here it is!**

* * *

><p><strong>Freedom At Last!<strong>

* * *

><p>I'd taken my wings out, placed them in front of me, and flexed them (yes we can flex our wings) so they'd be able to protect the front part of my body from Fang's blows.<p>

I knew, going in, that this wouldn't be an easy fight, but I had really underestimated Fang. It wasn't even Fang who was doing this, so I'm going to call it Fang's body.

This was a real fight, and Fang and I haven't been in one since we were little. All the way back when we lived in the 'E' house and had Jeb, if I remember right. Even then, though, we would never actually have the intent to _kill. _Fang's body had that was a sort of unmentioned rule that the three older kids wouldn't fight; and although we always argued (especially Fang and Iggy because of Gazzy's voice pranks), we never fought for-real.

After a while, I kind of gave up on trying to fight back against him, it was just too dangerous to risk even a single punch to the stomach.

I know… I know… I'm stupid for even starting to fight, but in my defense, it was my only choice. I couldn't just run away. I had to do anything I could to protect my flock. I mean Gazzy, Ratchet, and Jake were unconscious, Maya and Kate were busy, Nudge and Iggy were fighting Xavier, and Dylan was…

Wait, where **was** he anyway…?

"Fang-" I say, between punches to my wings, getting ready to ask about Dylan. I noticed that Fang looked really pained, probably more so than me, and finally I realized what he must be going through right now.

If I were in his situation and was watching any of the flock getting hurt, I would be furious. It would be a whole other story if I were the one to cause that pain in the first place, though. I'm pretty sure I'd be thinking of ways to kill myself by now if I was in his situation.

I try to look in his eyes now. "Fang?" I ask.

He didn't respond; all I saw in his eyes was pain. He'd asked for help from Maya a while ago, but I'd ordered her to stay back and keep Kate safe. Her body was slightly weaker than mine and she wouldn't be able to protect herself if Fang's body suddenly picked her as his new target once I got help from Maya.

"Fang-" punch*"I'm not blaming-" *dodge* "-you for any-of this. I know you don't want to do this. I know you, Fang."

He finally looked up at me, "Max, I'm-" He started, with apologetic eyes, but then fell to the ground right as he was about to roundhouse kick my wings again.

I unfurled my wings and kneeled to his side. "Fang." I then sat down beside him. "Fang?"

What happened to him? Did Xavier do something to him? Will he be okay? I grab his shoulder and start to shake it, "Fang! Answer me Fang!" I was ready to start screaming some more until I heard Nudge yelling at me.

"Max, he'll be okay. Iggy and I just knocked Xavier out." She informs me as she gets closer.

I look up and see Nudge kneeling down to check for Jake's pulse. I could see Xavier further back, collapsed on the white-tiled floor, surrounded by a small pool of what I think to be his own blood. Iggy was coming towards me, his right fist bloody and bruised. So that's what happened to Xavier… Iggy happened…

"Are you okay Max?" Iggy asks, out of breath from sprinting.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you sure Fang will be, though?" I ask, not caring about something meaningless like any aches or pains I had. I just cared about whether Fang would be alright or not.

He gets down on my level and looks at Fang on the floor. Putting his index and middle fingers together, he grabs Fang's hand and puts then to his wrist, where his thumb bone ended. Not a moment later Iggy says, "Yeah, he'll be fine. He's asleep now. I'm not really sure when he'll wake up though. Could be a few minutes; could be a few days." He tells me shrugging.

I breathe a sigh of relief. At least he was fine. Then I remember something, "Iggy, Kate's water broke!" I say. We both look to Kate to see that Maya had helped her walk down the hall, to where Iggy had set the Gasman down earlier. I look back to Iggy, "Go to her and see what you can do, I'll try to get Fang up. We really need to get out of here."

"Alright." He stands up, giving me a nod and then he's off to help the others.

I look down to Fang. He was actually sleeping, am I the only one that finds that weird? I do my best to sit him up, and then turn my attention back to Nudge. "Is he okay?" I ask.

She had already stood him up and against a wall. "Yeah, it doesn't look like he lost too much blood, but we should get him checked out." Nudge tells me, and then goes back to attempting to wake Jake up.

Just then, Maya makes her way to us.

"Have you seen Dylan?" I ask her.

"No, I came here to ask you the same thing." She tells me nervously.

I look around for a second, thinking. I spot a camera and get an idea. "Hey Nudge, could you look through that camera and try to find where Dylan went?" I ask, knowing her power wasn't limited to only things she touched anymore.

She nods and closes her eyes, concentrating on the camera above her. A moment later she opens her eyes. "He went that way, right after we saw Xavier." She tells us, pointing down the hall where Iggy, Kate and Gazzy were.

"You don't think he would have run away, do you?" I ask, confused.

"No, he's wouldn't do that." Maya says, sounding a little unsure herself.

I pause for a moment, thinking about what we should do. I was their leader after all and we couldn't just stay here and wait for them to send us more goons.

"Iggy come over here, and bring Gazzy. Maya, could you go and help Kate come here?" They did as I told them to and now everyone was in the same place. "Okay guys, we're missing Dylan but we really need to get out of here. We only have three able fighters, Iggy, Maya, and Nudge, so if we get attacked again I seriously doubt we'll **all** be able to escape." Maya's eyes widen. "Dylan might already be outside, waiting for us." I add quickly. "-And if not, I promise we'll come back for him, alright?"

"No! What's with you? This isn't like you at all; you would never leave a flock member behind!" She screams furiously.

"Maya, think about it!" I say. "Ratchet, Gazzy, Fang, and Jake are all out. Kate and I can't exactly give it all we've got; I'm not even sure how we're going to get everyone out as it is!"

"I still don't want to leave Dylan." She says, softer.

"None of us do, but you have to think it all the way through."

She stays quiet, and looks back down the hall to where Dylan had run off to.

"Nudge, can you carry Gazzy?" She nods and walks to get him from Iggy. "Iggy, Jake?" He nods and goes to pick him up. "Maya, Fang?" She just walks to him and starts to pick him up. I wouldn't have normally let her take Fang, but I had to keep my jealously out of this right now. "Kate, are you okay enough to help me with Ratchet? We're not too far from an exit. Do you think you can make it?"

"Yeah, I just want to get out of here as soon as possible."

I nod and we walk over to Ratchet. Someone had propped him up against the wall, so we didn't have to bend down much. We both grabbed under his arms and I noticed his eyes started to open slightly. "Wait. Hold on, I think he's waking up!" We both take a step back to give him some room.

He looks around and rubs his forehead. He looks up at us, "What happened? Where am I?" He asks.

"You passed out from Fang's punches, don't you remember? We're still in the Itex building." Kate tells him.

"Guys, I think he might have a concussion." Iggy says.

I look back to Iggy.

I remember once when we were little and we were practicing our kicking and dodging, Fang had ended up getting a concussion. That day he'd been a little off. He was being slow and unobservant, and those are two things you should definitely **not** be when you're fighting with me. Even if it **is** just practice, it's just not a good combination. So I ended up giving him a roundhouse kick to the side of the head and scared Jeb half to death. I felt really bad, of course, but I couldn't really do anything. Fang didn't pass out from it, but he was disoriented and unbalanced for the rest of that day. Jeb made him stay up that night, for fear of not being able to wake him up again, and I stayed up too, since that was the least I could do. Fang ended up being okay, but I made a promise to myself that day; I would never let that happen again. I would always hold back as much as possible when fighting a flock member. I would beat the crap out of Fang and Iggy on occasion, when they got out of hand, and threaten the others, but I would never really hurt them.

Iggy caught me looking at him and shook his head. "There's nothing I can do, Max. We just need to get out of here, and fast."

"Okay. Kate, take one of his arms." I say.

"Try to move him as little as possible." Iggy adds.

Kate and I nod, and put his arms over our shoulders. We supported him while he did his best at a fast walk. He didn't ask any more questions, but I could tell he was confused. "It's not that much further guys, just hang on, we're almost out." I tell them.

Ratchet, Kate, and I were fast-walking down the empty, white hall with the rest followed close behind. Nudge carried Gazzy in her arms, Iggy somehow managed to carry Jake in his, and Maya carried Fang. We turned the next corner and could now see the door they'd all come in from. It was pretty hard to miss.

I was so excited to be seeing freedom again that I didn't even bother to ask who'd torn the door down.

We were almost there, but, as most of you would've guessed, we came across _yet another_ obstacle… Awesome…

Right in front of us, blocking the door, were countless numbers of people. Most were experiments, some were white coats, and a few others were those reptilian guard things. I could tell some of them were experiments by how old they looked. I mean some were still only children. I'm pretty sure Zaila was the youngest white coat I'd ever met. I wondered for a second if she was in the mix, but quickly dismissed the thought. I didn't have time to think about that right now.

They were waiting there, up and down the whole hallway and when I looked back, I saw ever more were starting to swarm in behind us and blocking our only exit. We were completely trapped. Only three of us could fight, against the probably hundred or more of them. That was it, game over.

Most of the experiments had blank looks on their faces, almost like they were being controlled. It wouldn't surprise me, considering all of the mind controllers around here.

"Maximum Ride!" A booming voice roared from somewhere up above us. "You have caused us enough trouble over the years, so surrender now before you force my hand!" Who I assumed to be the head of this place yelled.

"Force your hand? What more can you do, you've been keeping us in freaking dog crates for most of our lives and experimenting us half to death. Are you going to send us to different prisons? Or sorry, I mean '_facilities'_."

"No, I will kill your flock Max." The man over the loudspeaker deadpans.

I went silent.

I knew these people were capable of it, without hesitation. I looked around and noticed most of the people around us had guns. They were really going to do it. I can't let that happen. I won't let that happen.

"I-" I start.

"Max!" I hear two voices shout from the back of the crowd behind us.

Suddenly everyone who had guns drops them. Next, the people who were blocking the voices who'd called my name take a few steps to make room in the middle of the hallway, revealing Dylan and Zaila.

Dylan runs to us and starts to explain, "It looked like we needed help back there so I went to find Zaila. I guess we ended up needing her more than I thought." He smiles.

Maya takes a few steps forward, so she's now right in front of Dylan's face. She slaps his straight across the face, making a loud, sharp sound, heard all around.

Dylan clutches the right side of his face with his hand. "What was that for?!" He asks, wide-eyed.

"_That_ was for leaving us without a word." Maya takes his hand away from his red cheek into hers, and then gives him a kiss on the same cheek. "And _that_ was for coming back and saving all of our butts." She tells him. They both smile at each other and I finally decide to look away.

Zaila was now in our little circle. "I just blanked everyone's minds; I can't hold it for long so I suggest we hurry on out of here before they come to their senses again." She tells me.

I nod. "Alright guys, quickly now, grab someone and let's go!"

Dylan helped Ratchet out so now Kate and I only had to carry our own weight around, for which we were both grateful for might I add.

In only a few seconds, we were finally outside. We'd actually made it out. I'd actually begun to think we'd never make it out. I mean, we've been in these situations countless times before, but I was really scared this time. Tell anyone I said that and you're dead…

It was just beginning to dawn outside and I didn't mind it _one bit_ that we were in a desert. There were a few trees here too which was a little weird, but I shouldn't really worry about that now. What I needed to worry about was how we'd be able to get home.

We had five able flyers (Nudge, Iggy, Maya, Dylan, and myself), four of which could carry someone for a while (not me). We had six people to fly home (Gazzy, Jake, Fang, Kate, Ratchet, and Zaila). I'm not sure where we are, so no clue where home is.

"Iggy, how'd you all get here?" I ask as I stop everyone in front of some thick shrubs, only a short distance from the facility.

"We drove in a van to the closest town, but flew into the desert." He says, setting Jake down for a bit. He was starting to look a little out of breath and tired from all of the fighting and having to carry Jake around. Now that I looked around, so did Nudge and Maya. Even Kate looked a little out of breath, and I'm not going to lie, I didn't feel great either.

"Max, I'm almost at my limit. There are too many people." Zaila informs me. I look back and notice her nose was dripping some blood onto her lab coat. She noticed too and quickly whipped it away.

We're always so close to freedom and then this kind of stuff happens! Someone must really hate us up there!

I was starting to panic, but then remembered what Jeb would say at a time like this. '_Panicking can only lead to failure'_. Yeah… Something like that…

"Max?" Nudge asks, while I try to think things through. "What do we do?"

I look around. I wanted to scream. We couldn't run for it, Kate and I were too pregnant and some of the others had to carry people.

"The town isn't very far Max." Iggy finally adds.

I look at him. He could have said that a while ago.

"Let's go, as fast as we can without losing anyone." I say.

They all realize it's probably the best option we have and start to go. About a minute in I look over to Zaila, who was running beside me. He nose was bleeding more now and she looked paler than usual.

I realize she was still doing mind blank. "Zaila, stop! That's enough, you can stop now, or you're going to hurt yourself!" I tell her. We'd been going at a fairly quick pace, but I could still see the building if I turned around.

She smiles at me. "I know Max, and it's okay. This is my job. Jake messed up a little and we can't lose you all now, not like this. You're supposed to save the world and I can't let you get caught by these people. I'll be known as a traitor now, so I can't get caught either, and if they get Jake… Well that wouldn't be good either." She tells me, still smiling while the blood gets into her mouth and starts to redden her white teeth.

"No, Zaila, stop." I turn forward again, from facing Zaila to the side, and yell for Maya. "Maya, you know where the car is. I want you to fly as fast as you can to it and then drive it back to us!"

She'd been listening to the conversation, and understood. "I don't have super speed like you, but I'm pretty fast." She tells me and stops to hand Fang over.

Iggy takes the car keys out of Jake's pocket and chucks them at Maya, which she catches expertly before she takes off flying.

Nudge comes back to us and starts talking really fast. "Here Zaila, take Gazzy. He's lighter than what he looks because of our bones, but you probably already knew that. Anyway, I can take Fang because I'm stronger than you, which you probably knew too." She swipes Fang up from Zaila with only minimal effort and continues jogging ahead.

"Do you think Maya will be able to make it Iggy?" I ask.

"Yeah, I think so." He answers.

"Okay, now you can stop Zaila. We're pretty far from the place and we have help on the way." I all but beg. "-And we still need you, you can't pass out _**(or worse)**_ on us."

She looks back, as if considering whether or not to stop. She finally nods, "Alright Max, I'll stop for now."

I sigh in relief. We kept our fast speed walk/jog going for a while. Iggy carried Jake, Nudge-Fang, Zaila-Gazzy, Dylan helped Ratchet, and Kate and I just tried to keep up.

I could tell Zaila had stopped when the blood finally stopped dripping from her nose, and she started to pick up her pace.

It'd already been about half an hour and I was getting really thirsty. We'd lost sight of the facility long ago, but Maya still hadn't come back. I was getting more worried by the second and I'd felt Dylan had already calmed me a few times. He didn't say anything though, probably so as to not worry the others. I was really grateful for it.

Just as I was starting to think this desert would never end, Dylan shouted, "I see Maya!"

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- Sorry for any and all mistakes. I didn't want to wait any longer to post, (I've already lost a few followers) so you'll just have to try to overlook any mistakes. If there's anything that's written SO badly that you can't understand just write a review on it and I'll explain, and fix it if it need to be fixed. For all of those out there who are still sticking with me; thank you:) you all are great! I swear I won't leave this story unfinished, I'm not that kind of writer. <strong>

**Q.O.T.U- What is your favorite movie? At the moment, mine is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm going to make there be a movie playing in the next chapter. **

**Love,**

**~Lucy**


	44. Everyone Is Okay

**A.N- Sorry again that this is late, but as I've said before: I am NOT giving up on this story. I will see this thing through even if it kills me. Well, maybe not if it kills me, but... Yeah, I'm not abandoning it so have patience please:) Sorry that this one is a little boring too, but I'll try to make then next one better.**

* * *

><p><strong>Everyone Is Okay<strong>

* * *

><p>A few seconds of looking into the distance proved that Dylan was right, as usual, about what he saw. A van was quickly approaching, and I could see Maya's head bopping above the steering wheel. I hadn't felt this happy since we finally got out of the desert prison, which felt like ages ago.<p>

I noticed the desert was actually ending behind Maya. It was composed of mostly dirt rather than the stupid light-colored sand we were all sick of seeing.

Everyone started to run after seeing Maya, and as soon as the gray van came to a halt a short distance ahead of us, all of the doors opened. The van had windows, so it wasn't one of those pedophile vans that kids are usually taught to stay away from. We ran the short distance we had left with all we had and all piled in when we got there. Maya closed all the doors, turned the car around with a quick spin, and sped away barely waiting for all of us to be seated.

This van was supposed to seat eight people, but we made all eleven of us fit. We'd put Fang, Gazzy, and Jake in the very back seats with Nudge and Iggy to make sure they didn't fall over and hurt themselves. Dylan, Ratchet, Kate, and I sat in the three connected middle seats that were made for three people like the back ones were. Maya and Zaila sat in the front seats. Maya drove as Zaila looked at a map and told her all of the short cuts she could find.

We hadn't seen anyone chase after us, but it never hurt to be safe. Also, decided it'd be best to not go back to our last home yet, where the rest of us were, we were going to lay low for a while and make sure no one was really following us.

We drove to a hotel and everyone got off except for Maya and Zaila. They were going to a few pharmacies to pick medical supplies up so Iggy and Zaila could do their best to heal everyone. Since it would look suspicious if two beat up women walked into a pharmacy and bought a butt load of things, they chose to take a little longer and just drive to a few. They also cleaned their faces a little; their clothes weren't too bad though.

Dylan paid for a few rooms and we snuck all of the passed out people through a side door that wasn't in sight of the front desk. It was midday and the hotel didn't seem to be very busy. Thankfully no one saw us and we were able to get everyone in rooms. The people were set up in rooms so that if someone came in, there'd still be at least two people who could defend themselves and maybe someone who was passed out. Gazzy, Iggy, and Nudge shared; Fang, Ratchet, Kate, and I; Jake, Zaila, Maya, and Dylan.

We'd sent Nudge out to wait in the lobby for the others. She probably read all the magazines they owned since Maya and Zaila took so long, but when they finally got here those of us who were conscious were super relieved. We were all more or less broken in one way or another, not to mention worried about each other. Gazzy still had that poison that we didn't know how to treat, Kate hadn't mentioned anything after she'd thought her water had broken back at that prison (I feared for the worst), and I wasn't really sure if Jake's human body could take all of what had happened to him.

Iggy and Zaila went around, checking everyone over, and since Nudge, Dylan, Maya, and I only had minor things like scratches and bruises, we all just cleaned our own injuries, and cleaned and bandaged ourselves. Zaila told us that Gazzy's poison wasn't very dangerous, and that he'd just be out for a while. She instructed Iggy on how to make a sort of 'antidote' out of things she brought back from the pharmacy, which would help Gazzy get better quicker.

While Iggy took his time measuring and mixing various liquids into a complimentary styrofoam hotel cup, Zaila was busy checking Kate out. She took her into another hotel room after asking her some questions about what hurt and things of that nature. They were gone for a while.

Iggy finished making Gazzy's concoction which looked like a green-brown, semi-liquid pudding. He rubbed some on Gazzy's swollen cheek and then put some clean gauze over it, placing some medical tape on the edges to secure it in place. He then left the passed out Gazzy to sleep on the hotel bed, moving to the next person he needed to check over.

Just when I was starting to think that someone had kidnapped them or something, the door opened and Kate and Zaila walked in. "She'll be fine." Zaila announced.

"What was it?" I asked.

"Just a bit of blood, nothing to worry too much about. Both Kate and the baby are healthy other than some bruising to Kate's stomach. What she felt earlier was blood, not her water breaking. When Fang elbowed Kate, it was too low to hit the baby or anything important." Zaila reassures us, making everyone let out an audible sigh of relief.

Ratchet had perked up a little at this conversation and he seemed more aware of everything, probably meaning he remembered things now. Kate walked over to Ratchet, who was sitting on the edge of the second double bed in the room (Gazzy and Jake occupied the first). He asked her what had happened to her, and she started to explain everything that happened after he was knocked out.

I turned my attention to Fang now, who I was sitting by. He was on the other side of the bed Ratchet sat on, still knocked out. I'd been by his side ever since he was placed on the bed- only moving away when Iggy needed to check him over. I moved one of the room's arm chairs as close as it would get to the bed's side and been perched on it since. Iggy had told me he had no idea when Fang would wake up, but I wasn't about to leave his side any time soon. y

Night time came and half of us went out to eat at some pizza place. Kate and I were left behind to look after Gazzy, Fang, and Jake. It wasn't too bad though, we ordered room service food for us and the others since they were most likely going to come back still hungry. We didn't want to look too suspicious so they were going to eat like normal humans tonight. We _were_ still pretty close to that desert place after all. The hotel food wasn't the best, but it was still food and when you're hungry from running in a desert all day (not to mention living off of desert rat for a few years), you really can't complain.

Iggy, Maya, Dylan, Zaila, Nudge, and Ratchet came back about two hours after leaving, when Kate and I were about to fall asleep. Everyone was all crowded in the room Fang, Ratchet, Kate, and I were sharing, the Flock all ate the hotel food we'd left for them. Dylan walked in a few minutes after everyone else, holding three boxes of pizza.

I raised my eyebrow at him. "Lobby guy held me up." He explained. "He thought we were throwing a party and told me it was against hotel rules. I had to tell him this was just our dinner. You want some?" He tells me opening up the top one to reveal a half eaten pizza.

"Get hungry on the way here?" I ask. "No thanks though. I'm tired, Kate and I just want to go to sleep." I say, pointing a finger to Kate. I noticed she was already fast asleep on one of the hotel beds.

"Alright." He looks back to the rest of the room, "Alright, who ate the pizza on the way here?"

Nudge lifts up her from a plate of mashed potatoes, "Sorry, I didn't think they'd want it all." She says.

I smile at her, "It's fine, honey. You eat what you want, I was full anyways."

She smiles back, "Thanks, Max. You're the best!" and then she goes to the pizza box and eats a couple more pieces.

Iggy and Ratchet had taken Gazzy and Jake to their respective rooms when they were done eating so that Fang, Ratchet, Kate, and I would get our own beds. Kate had fallen asleep on the other side of Fang's bed so Ratchet later picked her up and moved her to the other bed, when everyone had gone to their own rooms and put the small number of leftovers into the tiny old hotel fridges. After he finally fell asleep, I felt like I could. For some reason, I just felt it impossible to fall asleep if those around me weren't. Unless I was dead tired, or someone else was on watch, I would always be the last to fall asleep in my flock. We had Zaila now though. She was able to sense thoughts even in her sleep, so we were all safe.

I was very thankful to have Zaila. She brought me and every one of us a sense of security that we'd never had before. She was one of the only people I'd been able to trust very quickly. It felt like she always knew what to do and thought several steps ahead of everyone. She was like me, but better. I smiled

Those thoughts were swimming through my head when I turned over in my bed, still smiling, to look at Fang. In the little street light coming in from the poorly- closed shades, I realized that his eyes were open. I gasped, "How long have you been awake?" I whispered.

He blinked, "Since Ratchet turned out the lights, I think." He tells me.

That'd been a while ago. It's weird that I hadn't noticed his breathing change or anything, but then again he's pretty much always as calm as if he were asleep so…

He reaches his hand up to my face and places it on my cheek, "Are you okay?" He asks me.

I smile again. "Yeah, I'm fine, Fang." I put my hand over his, on my cheek. "How are you? Does anything hurt? I think Iggy and Zaila left some pain killers in this room in case you woke up and-"

"I'm fine, Max." He tells me. "I don't need anything. How are the others though? Kate? Jake? Gazzy?"

"They'll all be fine. Kate and her baby were both okay, only a little bruising to her stomach. You missed anything important. Zaila said Jake should wake up tomorrow, nothing was broken or ruptured. And Zaila told me our little trooper's poison was just to sedate anyone who tried escaping from the white coats, nothing dangerous." I tell him. "And everyone else just had bruises and small cuts."

He holds me close and puts his chin on my head, "I'm glad everyone's safe- especially you and him." He says, taking his chin back down and looking down at my stomach, rubbing it lightly. I kiss his cheek lightly with a smile (I was doing a lot of that tonight). "You should get some sleep. Goodnight, Max. I'll be right here when you wake up. I love you." He whispers, and kisses my nose lightly.

I snuggle closer to him, with my head on his chest, "Goodnight, Fang. I love you." I say and fall right to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>A.N- So Kate and Max should be having their babies soon, I already have a general idea of how I'm going to make this happen, but I was wondering how you all would enjoy reading it the most. Like, would you want it to start happening while they're all separated one day, back in New York? All together watching a movie at a theater? Kate and Max together at a mall? Suggest anything you think of, no matter how weird!<strong>

**Q.O.T.U- How should the babies come into the world?**

**Love you,**

**~Lucy**


	45. Hermaphrodite?

**A.N- Hey guys, I finally updated! I think I haven't updated in almost a year and I suck for that:/ Sorry. Well I've gotten a lot of suggestions for how to do this next part, so thank you and I'll be sure to incorporate your ideas. **

* * *

><p><strong>Hermaphrodite?<strong>

* * *

><p>Fang had held true to his word because that morning he was still beside me when I woke up. He'd been watching me sleep and it made me feel very special, and only a little creeped out…<p>

"Good morning, Max." He whispered.

"Good morning." I say back, as I sit up in the creaky hotel bed to scan the room out of habit.

Fang gets up slowly and stretches, "They're all down stairs getting complementary hotel breakfast."

I turn to him from scanning the room, which was in fact empty of people. He'd walked around the bed and over to my side to offer me a hand of assistance in getting up, off the bed. "This hotel has free breakfast?" I ask, surprised, as I take his hand.

"Why else would anyone come to this dump?" He asks as he helps me up.

I really hate getting helped, but my stomach was getting so big that it was just getting ridiculously hard to get up- or to do anything for that matter. I rub my stomach for a few seconds after being helped up. "Is Kate's stomach even close to this size?" I ask, looking up to his face.

He looks at mine for a second and placing his hand on it he says, "Well you have to remember that he _does _have our DNA. …even if he's Dylan's, he still has our DNA and he _will_ develop a whole lot faster than Kate and Ratchet's baby."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." That was something that you'll probably never hear coming from my mouth again…

I'd forgotten about that whole accelerated growth and development thing. We'd noticed that we actually start developing a bit slower as we get older and we think that the older kids (Iggy, Fang, and I) will look our age soon. Iggy had the idea of our development possibly stopping after a certain age, but I just thought that was ridiculous. Then Fang brought up the good point of the white coats always causing things they didn't intend, so I guess the stop ageing idea might still be possible.

I start a fast pace to the door, "Come on slowpoke, I'm hungry!"

He makes a little snort sound behind me, and then follows.

After everyone ate their fill, as quickly as they could, we left. We filled one plastic supermarket bag with all of the left-over medical supplies we had and booked it. After seeing the amount of food we ate, the hotel workers would've surely called the cops on us or something. I_ really_ didn't want to deal with that at the moment.

Our van was filled to the brim again, as per usual, but I wasn't too bothered since we'd finally get to go home.

We stopped at a gas station to fill the tank up all the way, and so we'd be able to get a better map and start on our journey back to our current home in New York. I didn't pay too much attention to Fang and Jake in the front talking about the rout they should take, but from what I could- hear it was going to be a long ride…

About half an hour into our trip back home, I remembered my comment to Fang earlier, about how I thought my stomach was bigger than Kate's. I was sitting to her left so I took the opportunity to inspect her baby bump and compare it to mine.

My stomach did in fact look bigger, but it was only by a little bit and was most likely due to the quicker development thing, so I let it go. I continued looking out my window, to the cars that sped by, wishing we could just fly to places; like the old days, when our group was smaller and I wasn't as heavy.

When we finally got to our destination, we ditched the car a few miles away from our home and split off into small groups. This way we wouldn't attract too much attention. I walked the second quickest route to our dwelling with Fang and Nudge. Kate, Ratchet, and Iggy took the fastest route home.

We'd all take different ways and get there at different times so that anyone following us this far would at least get confused. After we'd gotten home, we realized we hadn't been followed. For now at least, we were safe.

The part of our group that'd stayed back welcomed us happily, relieved that we'd gotten there safely. We all talked for a few hours, filling each other in on what had happened to us, while those of us who had just arrived took turns taking showers in the two small bathrooms we had.

Nothing interesting had happened back here, in New York. They'd been careful not to let our enemy interfere with any signal sent to or from this place, and so hadn't had much contact with us.

After a long talk, Jake got up from his seat and stretched a bit, "Alright, I think we should check Max and Kate out. Just in case anything was missed. We have all the equipment we need here and we can make sure the babies are okay. If that's okay with you two, of course." He said.

Kate and I nodded in agreement.

I'm normally all squirmy (to put it lightly) about doctor stuff, but when it came to this baby and Jake's group, I just felt like I was getting treated by my mom. I was still a little scared, but I could deal with it. Plus, I felt a really strong urge to keep this baby safe and just getting checked out was nothing compared to what I'm willing to do for him. The kid isn't even out of me, yet I feel so close to him. It's strange, but I like it.

Jake and Livy went into one of their medical rooms, and it was a while before they came out again. When they came back out they told Kate to go and I was told to try to relax as much as possible.

"I'm not even stressed out…" I mumbled.

Fang looked over at me, "You're gonna break the chair, miss relaxed-pants." He commented.

I looked down at my hand, which was gripping the recliner arm pretty tightly. I released my grip and stuck my tongue out at Fang.

So maybe I was a little tense… what of it? It's not like it really matters… I look around the room and see that Nudge, Fang, and I are the only ones left. Everyone else had called it a night and gone to bed early. Nudge sat sideways on a love seat that faced the TV. She was on her laptop with her legs sitting comfortably on Fang's lap, who was sharing the couch with her, watching TV. I sat on a nice dark-leather recliner facing the TV, but not watching it.

I couldn't help but notice how messy everything was. It was like the guys who stayed behind hadn't cleaned a bit… Did anyone _ever_ clean this place? It didn't really look like it. There was dust everywhere, the ground was full of dead leaves, dirt, newspapers, jackets, and shoes were lying all over the floor. It was so bad that it gave _me_, _Maximum Ride_, the urge to clean… That was just sad.

"You okay, Max?" Fang asked.

I took my eyes away from the mess and looked over at Fang. Nudge looked up from her laptop, a little scared. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just… Has anyone ever cleaned this place?"

They both looked at each other. Fang answered, "Um, yeah. Jake makes people clean it once in a while. Why?"

"It all just seems so dirty. I don't like it." I say, and get up. "I'm going to clean while I wait for Jake."

Nudge takes her legs off of Fang and sits straight, "No Max, you shouldn't strain yourself! Someone else can clean up tomorrow!" She tells me, worriedly.

"I'll be fine. I'm just going to dust a little bit and stuff."

Fang gets up, "Don't bend down too much. I can help you. I'll pick stuff up from the ground."

I nod, not really paying attention. I go into the kitchen and get a rag. I dust the TV, the counters and tables, and even on top of the fridge once I run out of visible places. Fang had hung up all the jackets in the closet that had been laying on the couches and floor and then took the shoes to everyone's rooms.

After everything was a little more cleaned up, I felt better. It's like the filth was making me stressed. There was still a lot of dirt and crap on the floor, but I didn't want to vacuum and wake people up, so I planned on doing it the next day or at least get someone to do it.

I went and sat next to Nudge, who was still on her computer. She lifted her feet up to let me sit and then placed them back down, on my lap. She scooted her feet as close to my knees as possible, probably afraid of even touching the stomach that held her to-be nephew. "You know, some women get the urge to clean when they're about to have their child. It's their way of 'tiding their nest'… get it?" She laughed at her own joke.

"Very funny Nudge." I say, laughing a little as well.

"I _am_ serious though. I just found it online, See?" She said, leaning over and turning her laptop's screen so I could see a page which literally talked about women having urges to "tidy their nest" before having children.

"That's weird, Nudge." I told her, after reading. I then yawned a long, satisfying yawn.

"It is though, isn't it? I mean if I were pregnant I wouldn't want to be out about, straining myself trying to clean. I'd be making other people do it for me. Like, who would ever _want _to clean? …Well I guess there are some people who just hate messes and stuff, but wouldn't they be tired and stuff if they were pregnant. Unless they were guys, since they can't get pregnant. It'd be weird of they could get pregnant. Can guys even get pregnant? I don't think they can. I know this doesn't really count but, I remember on of my classmates at the last school we went to once talked about some hermaphrodite-"

"It's getting late, Nudge. Maybe you should go to bed now." I tell her before she can go any further with this. "I'm pretty tired myself."

"Alright, Max. I am a little tired. I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well when you finally get to. Good night!" She says, turning her laptop off and getting off of the couch.

"Night, Nudge. Sleep well." I say, as she walks to the stairs that lead to everyone's rooms.

Fang gets up from the black-leathered recliner and walks over to the love seat to sit by me. "If you're really tired, I'm sure Jake won't mind checking you tomorrow morning."

"Nah, I'm fine. I'm sure they're about done with Kate by now." And right as I say this, I hear a door open and Jake call my name. His impeccable timing was almost scary.

Fang got up and helped me up, slowly. "Do you want me to go in there with you?" He asked.

"I'll be fine. You go get some rest so you can wake me up tomorrow morning, okay?"

"I'd rather wait for you so I can know if everything is okay." He tells me.

"Alright, Fang. I'll see you in a bit." I say as I walk away, not wanting to argue it.

I spent almost an hour in the room, but it felt like ten minutes. During this time, Jake asked me a lot of questions about how I was feeling, what I'd been eating, if I felt any pain or movement in my lower stomach, and even weird things like what color my pee was. Jake took some small blood samples and then Livy felt around, where the baby was.

"Everything feels normal." She said. "He's getting pretty big though, so he'll be ready to come out soon." She told me with an excited smile. "This is so exciting, Max! He'll probably be here before Kate's baby."

I was a little scared by that thought since I was kind of counting on Kate's baby coming before mine so I could have a little more knowledge of what was to come. I soooo wasn't ready for this…

"I can tell you're scared, Max, but don't be. We have everything you'll need. You're safe here and everyone here is ready to help in any way possible." She tells me with a smile.

"Thanks, Livy." I smile.

"So have you thought of any names, or are you just waiting until you see his face?"

"I've thought of some possibilities, but I'm deciding when I see him." I tell her.

Jake gets up from his chair, after writing some things down on paper. "Well, you're all done now, Max." He tells me. "Your baby seems to be doing fine and as are you. He'll probably be ready to join us in less than a month. Maybe a couple of weeks even. I'll get Livy to talk to you about a few last things within a week to help prepare you more if you feel like you need it, but I have faith that everything will go fine with you and that there won't be any complications." He reassures me. "Do you have any last questions?"

I think for a second. "When do you think Kate's baby will come?"

"I believe it'll be a little after yours. So maybe like a month or so." Jake tells me. "Any other questions?"

"No. I think I'm good. I'll see you all tomorrow. I'm heading to bed." I say, and they each wish me a good night as I leave.

When I walk out of the room, I see straight black hair falling over the couch arm and go towards it.

Fang was laying there, perfectly still while sleeping. His hair was all on the couch arm and away from his face, revealing a nice and relaxed expression on his face. He looked so peaceful in his sleep that I didn't want to wake him up. I was about to turn and get him a blanket from a shelf, when his eyes suddenly opened and I jumped.

"Good Lord, Fang. Where you awake the whole time?"

"I woke up when I heard the door open." He tells me, slowly sitting up from the couch. "You going to bed now?"

I sigh. "Yeah, I'm pretty beat."

Fang gets up and stretched a bit before he starts walking towards the stairs with me. "So was everything okay?" He asks while we walk.

"Yep. Everything was hunky-dory." I say. We finally get to the room doors and I'm exhausted. "Good night Fang. Get some rest, okay?"

"You too, Max. Good night." He says, and kisses my forehead.

Fang walks away towards his shared-room, and I walk into mine that I shared with Nudge, Kate, and Star. I lie down on my bottom bunk and fall right into a dream-filled sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Love you all and have a nice day,<strong>

**~Lucy**


End file.
